[Originally preached on 31 October, 2004]
James 2.1-13
We’re back in James this morning. And that means that we are back to James’ intensity, zeal and high standards. This time he turns his eye on how the saints were dealing with people in terms of their wealth – or lack of it. First, we’ll look at what’s going on in our text, then we’ll look at how the principles that we find there apply to us.
James brings up what evidently was an issue in the congregation to which he was writing. The people there were making distinctions between the rich and the poor. The rich were warmly welcomed and ushered to a nice place to sit for the service while the poor were neglected and treated quite badly. Now, as you read this you might be a bit surprised at how these Christians fell into what must have been an obvious pitfall. How could they miss the fact that they were being partial to the wealthy? And yet, doesn’t this remind us that our sin isn’t always obvious to us? That’s why we need the Word wielded by the Spirit to point out to us what should be – but aren’t – obvious sins.
James is quite clear as he points out their sin. ‘…have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?’ [Verse 4] Now, there is no sin in noticing that one person is different from another. Some people are rich and others are poor. That’s just a fact. But the problem for this congregation came when they took the next step and chose the rich over the poor. That’s where evil came into play.
Now, James tells us why this is so wrong. ‘Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man.’ [Verse 5-6] James points out to these saints that they have more in common with the poor than with the rich – at least where it counts most. God is partial to the poor, to the ‘underclass’, to the nobodies. And that is something to come to grips with. It is a theme that comes up in different places in the Scriptures. Listen to Paul. ‘For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.’ [1 Corinthians 1:26-29] Then there is what Jesus said on this. ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. … But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.’ [Luke 6:20-21,24,25] God is partial to the poor. He always has been. And the congregation that received this letter from James had forgotten that. And so they made a distinction. They drew the line in the wrong place. And James calls them to account.
There is another reason why their behavior was so wrong. They were breaking the second of the two great commandments. ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Whenever someone belittles another person he is breaking this key command of God. He is becoming a transgressor of the Law of God. James reminds these saints that they will be evaluated by that Law, what he calls the law of liberty. We’ll probably come back to this in a future sermon.
James is clear. The saints in this church were erring greatly by the way they were making distinctions between the rich and the poor. This was a serious sin. And it still is.
We’ve seen what James is talking about in our text. Now, what we need to do is to see what the Spirit is saying to us by this passage. What is the nudge that we need to feel from this text of Scripture? James is pointing out a problem that is based on economic differences. I don’t think that we have significant problems in this area. I don’t think that there are barriers within our church based on economic differences. But we still need to be careful. If we ever do fall into such a problem, it isn’t going to show up as some of us saying, ‘Well, that person is in a different economic class’ and then following that up by erecting a barrier. It’s more likely going to show as something like, ‘I just don’t have anything in common with him’ and then just not working at developing a relationship. It will not be obvious but rather subtle. So, from time to time, it’s good to ask yourself whether there are people here that you rarely if ever talk with. If so, you should ask yourself why that is. It might be that you have fallen into the same kind of pitfall that the saints in our text fell into.
Distinctions based on economics might not be a problem, but that isn’t the only way to build a barrier to relationship. Let’s look at a different kind of distinction that might cause problems within the body: personality. I recently stumbled over something at the Bible study in Clymer. We were looking at Luke 7 where John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus. ‘Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?’ It appears that John is a bit confused. Jesus seemed to be the one, yet now there are doubts. Why? Apparently, John expected the messiah to come and clean house in Israel. I think that’s what John was anticipating when he said, ‘I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ [Luke 3:16-17] You can almost hear John thundering these words. When Messiah comes the nation of Israel was to be purified, the faithless chaff toss out on its ear and then consumed by the flames of judgment. But what does John hear about Jesus? What is Jesus doing? Is He ‘cleaning house’ as John expected? No. He is quietly preaching and healing people. And so, John is a bit perplexed. ‘If Jesus is the Messiah, where is the fire and the winnowing fork? Where is the thundering from on high?’ One reason for John’s confusion is that he was a fire and brimstone kind of guy. He had a personality that didn’t major in subtlety. But Jesus wasn’t like that. Now, everything that John prophesied about Jesus was true. But Jesus went about doing it in a way that was different from what John expected. And that confused him. It seems that part of the problem is that John’s way of going about things was different from how Jesus did them. The problem seems to be one of personality. And John assumed that the Messiah would be like him, that the Messiah would have a personality like his. But He doesn’t.
As you look at the Church it’s clear that the saints aren’t the same. Some are quiet. They are being faithful Christians, following Jesus each day. But they are doing that in a quiet way. There are others, however, who are aggressive and outwardly passionate. They are also being faithful Christians, following Jesus each day. But their style of doing that is quite different from the quiet Christian. There are bursters and there are plodders. There are those who have a knack at seeing the big picture and getting a vision for the future. Then, there are those who pick up on the little details that others miss. We are different kinds of people with different kinds of personalities. God made us different. And that’s okay. But the problem comes when a Christian with one kind of personality considers another Christian with a rather different kind of personality and draws the wrong conclusions. Then barriers are erected and some people are kept at arms’ distance. Then someone’s sincerity as a Christian is doubted. And the result is a lack of unity and a lack of love for the neighbor. Again, you need to consider yourself. Could it be that there is a barrier between you and another of the saints because of what amounts to differences in personality? The command of our Lord is clear. ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ That command includes the other saints who seem very different from you. Are there some changes that you need to make?
Now, it gets more interesting when the differences are not a matter of personality but of theology. Christians understand the Bible differently on so many topics. And that will continue to be the case until Jesus comes back. How shall we deal with this? Where do we draw the lines? Which differences here should raise a red flag for us? What if you find out that a Christian whom you know actually thinks that abortion is not always wrong; that there are some situations where it is justifiable? Should that make a difference in your relationship with this person? Should you shun him or even doubt the validity of his faith because of that? Most of us don’t erect barriers when it comes to the differences between Baptists and Presbyterians, or between those who do believe that God elects to save some and those who don’t believe that. But what about a Christian who believes that there are some errors in the Bible – not many, and they’re all limited to the Old Testament history? What do we do with this brother? And there are lots of other examples. The problem, of course, is that there are those who are far too narrow when it comes to these things. ‘If you don’t agree with me on topics A, B and C then you are obviously an unbeliever.’ But then there are those who are just too loose. ‘It doesn’t matter what doctrine you believe just as long as you can say, “I believe in Jesus” ’. There are problems on both ends of the spectrum.
Now, what makes all of this even more complicated is sin. There are some personality traits that are just wrong. They are sinful. They need to be changed. And no one understands the Bible correctly in all that it teaches. We are all wrong in lots of places. But there are some ways of understanding the Bible that are so terribly off the mark that they threaten the very truth of the Gospel. They are heresies which should not be tolerated. In these and other things, there is sin. But how do we make allowances for immaturity? How do we leave room for the possibility of growth? Is this person an out and out heretic, or is he a true Christian who has been poorly taught and who could do so well with a little patient teaching from someone he trusts?
These are difficult questions, but here’s a place to start to deal with these things. Consider the other people in this room, members of Faith Reformed Church. They are your brothers and your sisters because of Jesus. They are members of your extended family. Jesus says that there are to be no barriers between us. There is to be no ‘us and them’; no ‘I just don’t have anything in common with him’. Sure, there are differences, lots of differences. I’ve mentioned only a few of the possibilities. But those differences are not to affect how you relate to each other. You are to love each other as Jesus has loved you. What you are as Christians outweighs what differences there might be. So don’t let the evil one stress the differences that exist and in this way undercut the unity that we have. Next week we will be having the Lord’s Supper. Part of examining yourselves before you take is to consider your relationships with the other saints. Next week, be ready to say before God: yes, there are differences, but there are no barriers – or at least none that you’re not working on.
James 2.1-13
We’re back in James this morning. And that means that we are back to James’ intensity, zeal and high standards. This time he turns his eye on how the saints were dealing with people in terms of their wealth – or lack of it. First, we’ll look at what’s going on in our text, then we’ll look at how the principles that we find there apply to us.
James brings up what evidently was an issue in the congregation to which he was writing. The people there were making distinctions between the rich and the poor. The rich were warmly welcomed and ushered to a nice place to sit for the service while the poor were neglected and treated quite badly. Now, as you read this you might be a bit surprised at how these Christians fell into what must have been an obvious pitfall. How could they miss the fact that they were being partial to the wealthy? And yet, doesn’t this remind us that our sin isn’t always obvious to us? That’s why we need the Word wielded by the Spirit to point out to us what should be – but aren’t – obvious sins.
James is quite clear as he points out their sin. ‘…have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?’ [Verse 4] Now, there is no sin in noticing that one person is different from another. Some people are rich and others are poor. That’s just a fact. But the problem for this congregation came when they took the next step and chose the rich over the poor. That’s where evil came into play.
Now, James tells us why this is so wrong. ‘Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man.’ [Verse 5-6] James points out to these saints that they have more in common with the poor than with the rich – at least where it counts most. God is partial to the poor, to the ‘underclass’, to the nobodies. And that is something to come to grips with. It is a theme that comes up in different places in the Scriptures. Listen to Paul. ‘For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.’ [1 Corinthians 1:26-29] Then there is what Jesus said on this. ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. … But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.’ [Luke 6:20-21,24,25] God is partial to the poor. He always has been. And the congregation that received this letter from James had forgotten that. And so they made a distinction. They drew the line in the wrong place. And James calls them to account.
There is another reason why their behavior was so wrong. They were breaking the second of the two great commandments. ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Whenever someone belittles another person he is breaking this key command of God. He is becoming a transgressor of the Law of God. James reminds these saints that they will be evaluated by that Law, what he calls the law of liberty. We’ll probably come back to this in a future sermon.
James is clear. The saints in this church were erring greatly by the way they were making distinctions between the rich and the poor. This was a serious sin. And it still is.
We’ve seen what James is talking about in our text. Now, what we need to do is to see what the Spirit is saying to us by this passage. What is the nudge that we need to feel from this text of Scripture? James is pointing out a problem that is based on economic differences. I don’t think that we have significant problems in this area. I don’t think that there are barriers within our church based on economic differences. But we still need to be careful. If we ever do fall into such a problem, it isn’t going to show up as some of us saying, ‘Well, that person is in a different economic class’ and then following that up by erecting a barrier. It’s more likely going to show as something like, ‘I just don’t have anything in common with him’ and then just not working at developing a relationship. It will not be obvious but rather subtle. So, from time to time, it’s good to ask yourself whether there are people here that you rarely if ever talk with. If so, you should ask yourself why that is. It might be that you have fallen into the same kind of pitfall that the saints in our text fell into.
Distinctions based on economics might not be a problem, but that isn’t the only way to build a barrier to relationship. Let’s look at a different kind of distinction that might cause problems within the body: personality. I recently stumbled over something at the Bible study in Clymer. We were looking at Luke 7 where John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus. ‘Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?’ It appears that John is a bit confused. Jesus seemed to be the one, yet now there are doubts. Why? Apparently, John expected the messiah to come and clean house in Israel. I think that’s what John was anticipating when he said, ‘I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ [Luke 3:16-17] You can almost hear John thundering these words. When Messiah comes the nation of Israel was to be purified, the faithless chaff toss out on its ear and then consumed by the flames of judgment. But what does John hear about Jesus? What is Jesus doing? Is He ‘cleaning house’ as John expected? No. He is quietly preaching and healing people. And so, John is a bit perplexed. ‘If Jesus is the Messiah, where is the fire and the winnowing fork? Where is the thundering from on high?’ One reason for John’s confusion is that he was a fire and brimstone kind of guy. He had a personality that didn’t major in subtlety. But Jesus wasn’t like that. Now, everything that John prophesied about Jesus was true. But Jesus went about doing it in a way that was different from what John expected. And that confused him. It seems that part of the problem is that John’s way of going about things was different from how Jesus did them. The problem seems to be one of personality. And John assumed that the Messiah would be like him, that the Messiah would have a personality like his. But He doesn’t.
As you look at the Church it’s clear that the saints aren’t the same. Some are quiet. They are being faithful Christians, following Jesus each day. But they are doing that in a quiet way. There are others, however, who are aggressive and outwardly passionate. They are also being faithful Christians, following Jesus each day. But their style of doing that is quite different from the quiet Christian. There are bursters and there are plodders. There are those who have a knack at seeing the big picture and getting a vision for the future. Then, there are those who pick up on the little details that others miss. We are different kinds of people with different kinds of personalities. God made us different. And that’s okay. But the problem comes when a Christian with one kind of personality considers another Christian with a rather different kind of personality and draws the wrong conclusions. Then barriers are erected and some people are kept at arms’ distance. Then someone’s sincerity as a Christian is doubted. And the result is a lack of unity and a lack of love for the neighbor. Again, you need to consider yourself. Could it be that there is a barrier between you and another of the saints because of what amounts to differences in personality? The command of our Lord is clear. ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ That command includes the other saints who seem very different from you. Are there some changes that you need to make?
Now, it gets more interesting when the differences are not a matter of personality but of theology. Christians understand the Bible differently on so many topics. And that will continue to be the case until Jesus comes back. How shall we deal with this? Where do we draw the lines? Which differences here should raise a red flag for us? What if you find out that a Christian whom you know actually thinks that abortion is not always wrong; that there are some situations where it is justifiable? Should that make a difference in your relationship with this person? Should you shun him or even doubt the validity of his faith because of that? Most of us don’t erect barriers when it comes to the differences between Baptists and Presbyterians, or between those who do believe that God elects to save some and those who don’t believe that. But what about a Christian who believes that there are some errors in the Bible – not many, and they’re all limited to the Old Testament history? What do we do with this brother? And there are lots of other examples. The problem, of course, is that there are those who are far too narrow when it comes to these things. ‘If you don’t agree with me on topics A, B and C then you are obviously an unbeliever.’ But then there are those who are just too loose. ‘It doesn’t matter what doctrine you believe just as long as you can say, “I believe in Jesus” ’. There are problems on both ends of the spectrum.
Now, what makes all of this even more complicated is sin. There are some personality traits that are just wrong. They are sinful. They need to be changed. And no one understands the Bible correctly in all that it teaches. We are all wrong in lots of places. But there are some ways of understanding the Bible that are so terribly off the mark that they threaten the very truth of the Gospel. They are heresies which should not be tolerated. In these and other things, there is sin. But how do we make allowances for immaturity? How do we leave room for the possibility of growth? Is this person an out and out heretic, or is he a true Christian who has been poorly taught and who could do so well with a little patient teaching from someone he trusts?
These are difficult questions, but here’s a place to start to deal with these things. Consider the other people in this room, members of Faith Reformed Church. They are your brothers and your sisters because of Jesus. They are members of your extended family. Jesus says that there are to be no barriers between us. There is to be no ‘us and them’; no ‘I just don’t have anything in common with him’. Sure, there are differences, lots of differences. I’ve mentioned only a few of the possibilities. But those differences are not to affect how you relate to each other. You are to love each other as Jesus has loved you. What you are as Christians outweighs what differences there might be. So don’t let the evil one stress the differences that exist and in this way undercut the unity that we have. Next week we will be having the Lord’s Supper. Part of examining yourselves before you take is to consider your relationships with the other saints. Next week, be ready to say before God: yes, there are differences, but there are no barriers – or at least none that you’re not working on.
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