What motivates your relationships with the people you meet throughout your lifetime? By what standards do you measure your relationships with others? What standards does God want for your relationships with other people? The world would have you believe that your relationships with others will determine your success and happiness. And because the world operates in this way the standard by which the world would have you view your relationships with others is based upon what people can do to further your own personal gain and pleasure. When you operate according to the world's standard you have the right to choose to become involved in only those relationships that will benefit you the most: Why waste your time and money on people who can't do anything for you when there are so many others who can help you achieve the happiness and fulfillment you're entitled to in this life?
The world would have you believe that your relationships with other people are motivated by what they can do to make your life complete. What standard does God have for our relationships with other people? Do you measure all your relationships by God's standards, even those relationships that don't benefit you in any way? What motivates your relationships with the many, many people you meet throughout your lifetime?
In his letter, James gives us God's standard for our relationships with other people. James is writing this letter to Jewish Christians living throughout the Roman Empire. These people were Jews by birth who upon hearing the gospel message of Jesus Christ became converts to Christianity. Because they were believers in Christ, these people were being driven from their homeland by the emperor of Rome. Eventually, the constant persecution they suffered led to an attitude of discouragement. They began to have doubts about their faith in Christ, which was evident in the way they conducted their lives. These people claimed to be believers in Christ, but their actions denied that claim; even though they called themselves Christians, they conducted their lives as though they had never heard of Jesus Christ.
One of the mistakes these people were making was in their relationships with one another. James points out the mistake they were making, and in so doing James gives us God's standard for our relationships with other people.
James begins this passage with a command in verse 1. I want to call your attention to the reference James makes about the Lord Jesus Christ because James mentions this name only twice in the entire letter. James assumed that the readers knew the basics of the Christian faith and that they understood the role that Jesus Christ had in their lives. But don't take this reference to the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 1 lightly. Understand that James is not throwing in this name here and there to make his letter sound spiritual. James has a purpose for mentioning the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is essential to James' command not to show favoritism. The point James wanted his readers to understand and the point that you are to understand is your faith in Christ influences your relationships with others. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, then that faith will be reflected in the way you conduct all of your relationships, not just those relationships that benefit you in some way.
James follows his command not to show favoritism with an illustration beginning in verse 2. Why does James present this setting? Why does James compare the reception given to a rich man with the treatment given to a poor man? In order to understand James' illustration, we need to understand the Jewish culture at the time this letter was written. Keep in mind that the original readers of this letter were Jews by birth, therefore, they probably saw the world around them from a Jewish perspective.
In the Jewish culture of that day it was perfectly acceptable to gain social, political, and religious status by catering to the needs of those people who could help you attain important positions in life, and the people who were best able to help you get ahead in the world were the wealthy. The poor were despised: there wasn't anything they could do for you and we see that the person showing favoritism in the illustration responded in the way we would expect a Jew of that day to respond: he sought out the rich man and showed him the good seat while neglecting the poor man. From a cultural viewpoint, that was acceptable. From a cultural viewpoint the person's motives were pure: What was wrong with gaining some status in the world? He had a family to feed. He had chariot payments to make. Why shouldn't he be looking out for his own needs?
But notice how James describes the person's motives in verse 4. According to James the person's motive for showing favoritism was anything but pure. James doesn't see the person's motives as a means of simply getting a step up in life. Instead, he sees the person's motives as self-serving. To James, the person was only interested in his own pride and personal gain. The way James saw it, operating according to the cultural norms of the time and catering to the needs of the rich man at the expense of the poor man was not only unacceptable, it was sinful.
Why did James see the person's motives as sinful? Because believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ don't show favoritism. But what does faith in Christ have to do with our relationships with other people? Shouldn't we have a say in how we conduct our relationships in this world? How will your faith in Jesus Christ influence your relationships with other people?
James explains how our faith in Christ affects our relationships with others by posing a question in verse 5. Let's understand what James is saying here. James is not suggesting that God is partial toward the financially poor and that we need to sell everything we have in order to be accepted by God. By asking this question, James was forcing his readers to look at the status of the poor from God's perspective.
What James wanted his readers to understand was that the poor who receive Christ are wealthy, not from the world's perspective but from God's perspective. God is the source of the wealth of the poor because God chose the poor to be rich in faith. And when God chooses to do something he exercises his grace in the matter; that is, God's choice of the poor was based upon his own free will. There was nothing the poor had to do to earn God's favor. God's choice of the poor was not influenced by what they could for God. Instead, his choice of the poor to be rich in faith was based exclusively upon his love and mercy for them.
And because God is the source of the wealth, there is no comparison between the value of the wealth of those who are rich in faith and the material wealth of the rich. Unlike the world's riches, which are worthless to you upon your death, the wealth that you have when you are rich in faith is priceless because the wealth that God has given to you is the gift of eternal life when you put your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
When we read verse 5 we see that James is amazed that the readers would even consider showing favoritism to the rich when the poor enjoyed a spiritual wealth that was infinitely more valuable than the material wealth of the rich: "Why do you discriminate against the poor when it is God who has made the poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith? Don't you understand that the wealth of this world is nothing in compared to the riches of grace that God has given to those who have faith in Christ Jesus?"
What motivates your relationships with the people you meet throughout your lifetime? Is God's grace the standard for all your relationships? God's grace allows you to see your relationships with others from God's perspective. God's grace allows you to love and accept everyone you meet who is a believer in Jesus Christ because you understand that Christ lives in them. God's grace allows you to love and accept everyone you know who is not a believer in Jesus Christ because you understand that Christ has died for them. As a believer in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, God's grace is the standard for all of your relationships because you experience God's grace every moment of your life when you put your faith in Jesus Christ.
James gives us a second explanation of how our faith in Christ influences our relationships with others beginning in verse 8. James describes the law that commands us to, "Love your neighbor as yourself" as the royal law. The royal law is the ultimate law governing all human relationships, and James points out to the readers that the royal law includes not showing favoritism toward others.
Why didn't the readers recognize this? Isn't it obvious that "the neighbor" in "love your neighbor as yourself" included the poor man in James' illustration? The person showing favoritism took a specific law commanding him to love your neighbor as yourself and made it vague by rationalizing who was his neighbor. He changed the law to make it convenient for himself by redefining his neighbor to include only those people who could do him a favor. He was not willing to include the poor man as his neighbor because God's Word, the source of the royal law, was not the standard for his relationships. He was willing to use God's Word as his standard only as long as it was to his advantage.
Is God's Word the standard for all your relationships? God's Word allows you to see your relationships with other people from God's perspective. When God's Word is the standard for your relationships you understand that the royal law, the law that commands you to love your neighbor as yourself, includes all the people you meet throughout your lifetime. God's Word changes the focus of your relationships from what others can do for you to make your life more comfortable to what you can do to serve others and to meet their needs. As a believer in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, God's Word is the standard for all of your relationships because God's Word influences every moment of your life when you put your faith in Jesus Christ.
The world would have you believe that your relationships with other people are motivated by what they can do for you to make your life complete. But the world's standards restrict your relationships with others.
The world's standards carry requirements that people must meet before you can develop any kind of a relationship with them: "I'll love and accept you if you do things my way, or if you dress a certain way, or if you call yourself a Christian." True freedom in your relationships comes only from Jesus Christ.
If you have faith in Christ, that faith will be reflected in the way you conduct all your relationships. By what standards do you measure your relationships with other people?
