INTRODUCTION
1. Open your bible to James 2:1&ff. Do you make an effort to shake hands and be friendly with everyone that comes to the services of the church? Or do you just come and go and speak to only a few others? Is there anyone in this building that you haven’t already shook hands with this morning? If so then you need to do so before they leave!
2. Hopefully the things that we will discuss this morning will motivate each one of us to appreciate and respect one another more than we have been appreciating one another.
3. Hopefully what James teaches us will motivate us to be a lot more friendly and give out a lot more hand shakes and hugs than what we have done in the past.
4. God loves every person in the world and we need to show love and encouragement to every one that God gives us an opportunity to show friendliness to.
5. Let’s observe some reasons that James gives in regard to why friendliness is so important.
DISCUSSION
I. FIRST, JAMES 2:1-4 TEACHES CHRISTIANS THAT THEY ARE NOT TO SHOW RESPECT OF PERSONS. IF A PERSON IS GUILTY THEY BECOME JUDGES WITH EVIL THOUGHTS.
1. In verses 1-4 James gives an illustration of how a local congregation could be guilty of showing partiality to one who was rich and showing special favors to him.
(1) James also illustrates how that the local congregation could be guilty of showing disrespect to the poor man.
(2) Let’s read James 2:1-4, “1 My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”
2. James uses one of many ways that prejudice, partiality or showing respect of persons is often shown toward other people. Turn to Colossians 3:11 and hold your place.
(1) In the first century the Jews were guilty of showing prejudice toward those who were Gentiles – those who were of a different nationality. People in the 21st century are often guilty of showing respect of persons if another is not of the same color of skin.
(2) Prejudice is also often shown relating to how much education or lack of education that one has or doesn’t have.
(3) Let’s read Col. 3:11, ““where there is neither Greek nor Jew [nationality is not to make any difference], circumcised nor uncircumcised {terms distinguishing the Jews from the Gentiles}, barbarian, Scythian [terms referring to those that many would think of as being uneducated], slave nor free {terms referring to social standings}, but Christ is all and in all.”
(4) In Christ, none of the distinctions apply, which are so important to men of the world. One who is wealthy, or highly educated, or has an extremely high intellect, or occupies a position of power and influence in politics, military circles, or society, has no spiritual advantage over the lowliest saint.
3. I am going to tell you a true story that I borrowed from a bulletin that illustrates that every human being is of equal worth in the sight of the Almighty.
The following borrowed story is designed to make us “think” about how Christians should accept people that are different than ourselves into THE WORSHIP SERVICES. Brethren, let us never be guilty of the sin of partiality or looking down on others as illustrated in this story.
I saw him in the church building for the first time last Wednesday evening. He was in his mid 70s with silver hair and a neat brown suit. Many times in the past I had invited him to come. Several friends had talked to him about the Lord and had tried to TEACH the Good News of Christ to him. He was a well-respected, honest man with so many characteristics a Christian should have, but he had never put on Christ in baptism. A few years ago, I asked him, after finishing a pleasant day of visiting and talking, “Have you ever been to a church service in your life?” He hesitated, then with a bitter smile he told me of a childhood experience some sixty years ago.
He was one of many children in a large impoverished family. His parents had struggled to provide food, with little left for housing and clothing. When he was about ten, some neighbors invited him to worship with them. The Bible class had been very exciting. He had never heard such songs and stories before. He had never heard anyone read from the Bible before. After class was over, the teacher took him aside and said, “Son, please don’t come again dressed as you are now. We want to look our best when we come worship the Lord.” He stood in his ragged, unpatched overalls, looked at his bare, dirty feet and said, “No ma’am, I won’t ever!” And he never did.
There must have been other factors to have hardened him so, but this one experience formed a significant part of the bitterness in his heart. I’m sure the Bible teacher meant well, but what if she had studied and accepted the teachings found in the second chapter of James? What if she had put her arms around that dirty, ragged little boy and said, “Son, I’m so glad you are here, and I hope you will come every chance you get to hear more about Jesus!” What a difference that statement would have made in this little boy’s life!
I pray that I might ever be open to the tenderness of a child’s heart, and that I might never fail to see beyond the appearance and behavior of a child to the eternal possibilities within. Yes, I saw him in the church house for the first time last Wednesday evening. As I looked at that immaculately dressed old gentleman lying in his casket, I thought of the little boy of long ago. I could almost hear him saying, "No ma’am, I won’t ever!” …. and I wept.
4. Let’s understand, as James teaches us, how that we become “judges of evil thoughts” when we show partality. When we don’t make a special effort to go to every person in the building and shake their hand and greet them we are guilty of being “judges of evil thoughts”.
5. James is teaching the professed “strong Christians” that everyone deserves and needs attention shown to them.
II. SECOND, JAMES 2:5 TEACHES THAT CHRISTIANS ARE NOT TO SHOW MORE RESPECT TO THE RICH THAN WE WOULD SHOW TO THE POOR BECAUSE WHEN WE DO, WE DESPISE THOSE GOD HAS HONORED.
1. Let’s read verse 5, “Listen, my beloved brethren: 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?”
2. This does not mean that God went to the opposite extreme and gave preferential treatment to the poor over the rich. “Chosen” is used in the common New Testament sense of referring to those who had responded to God’s invitation.
In other words God has a plan of salvation to be obeyed before we become his spiritual children and once we obey, we then are recognized as God’s “chosen”.
3. The last phrase of verse 5 says that God’s promises were to them that love him. But one cannot love God without obeying God (John 14:15; 1 John 5:3).
4. God chose the poor because it was the poor (majority speaking) who came to the Lord and did His will.
5. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:26, “Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called”.
6. One faithful but wealthy sister in Great Britain, who used her riches to further the cause of Christ, said that she had been saved by an m.. If Paul had said, not
any, there would have been no hope for me....she would explain, but rather he said, not many...
7. It was said concerning Jesus, “The common people heard him gladly”. (Mark 12:37). I am not sure why the common folk were more responsive to the gospel.
8. One suggestion is that the poor start off feeling some need for help, even if it is physical. They do not feel self-sufficient. And this can carry over to the spiritual
realm. But whatever the reason, the fact was that it was the poor who were most responsive to the gospel. So it is said that God “chose the poor”.
9. Please understand that both the rich and the poor have a right to choose and through the ages more of the poor, than the rich, have chosen God. Because larger numbers of the poor are choosing to obey God, this is why James says that “God chose the poor”.
III. THIRD, JAMES 2:6&7 TEACH THAT CHRISTIANS ARE NOT TO SHOW MORE RESPECT TO THE RICH THAN WE WOULD SHOW TO THE POOR BECAUSE WHEN WE DO, WE HONOR THOSE MOST CAPABLE AND LIKELY OF OPPRESSING CHRISTIANS AND SHOWING DISRESPECT TO CHRIST.
1. James continues, by saying that actually your practice of preferring the rich over the poor makes no sense at all, for you are honoring the very ones who make your life the most miserable. Here is the way James puts it in vs. 6&7: “But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?”
(1) The rich referred to here would almost certainly have been non-Christians. The influential, powerful, and wealthy Jewish leaders were imposing their will on others in Jerusalem and in other places.
(2) Two specific types of oppression are mentioned by James in these verses.
a. First, they used their influence in the corrupt courts of the day. To drag before the judgment-seats could be literal in some cases. And then citizen arrests were sometimes made by the rich themselves.
Or it could be figurative. The defenseless man is brought to trial against his will (we still speak of being dragged or hauled into court). Either way, the poor man didn’t stand a chance.
b. Second, they blasphemed “the honorable name by which they were called”. The honorable name was the name of Christ. In the original, “by which ye are called” literally reads “which was called upon you”. (see ASV footnote).
The name of Christ was called upon them when they were baptized (Acts 2:38). They thus became “Christians”, those who belonged to Christ (Acts 11:26), and became members of “the church of Christ” (Romans 16:16).
But the rich nonbelievers “blasphemed, made light of, slandered the holy name of Christ”.
How foolish then, James is saying, to give preferential treatment to the rich over the poor.
Calvin put it this way: “Why should a man honor his executioners and at the same time injure his friends?”
2. Perhaps we should insert right here that neither should we go to the opposite extreme and show preferential treatment to the poor over the rich.
Today some that are poor think that it is all right to ask and ask from the rich. Possibly saying to themselves, they can afford it and they ought to share with me.
This attitude is just as bad as its opposite and is condemned by this passage! We must have a Christian attitude toward the rich too.
James now turns to his next line of thought as he says, “Do not be a respecter of persons”. “Do not be friendly to some, but not friendly to others.”
CONCLUSION
1. Think about a lesson taught to us by implication in these verses that we have been studying. Over and over these verses have taught about how Christians are to treat everyone else.
2. What specific place is referred to pertaining to where this friendly treatment of one another is to take place?
(1) Look back at V. 2 the first part, “For if there come into your assembly……”
(2) This emphasizes that God’s people are to be a people that come regularly to the services of the church. We encourage you to be faithful to attend all the services of the church.
3. Something else this passage teaches by implication is the importance of becoming one of “God’s chosen ones” – of showing your belief, repentance, confession and obeying the command of baptism and becoming a child of God.
4. Please come and obey the gospel as we stand and sing!
Acknowledgments for a lot of thoughts in the development of all the sermons on the book of James are to go to:
(1) Bob Winton CD Commentary on Matthew 27:50-54. 464 Ridgewood Drive Manchester, Tennessee 37355. If interested in CD covering many O. T. & N.T. books call (866) 753-8456.
(2) Miscellaneous commentaries by numerous others.
