The Sin of Favoritism

Slideshow for this message is available

Introduction
James 1-2
The Passage is Confusing
What is this passage teaching? Clearly it has something to say about inequality. The fact that we are told to minister to the orphans and widows who are clearly the poor and to not be partial toward the wealthy means there’s a sort of concern about inequality woven into the fabric of this passage. The rich have power and influence and the poor don’t. But what is the point? Is this passage teaching that God is against this sort of economic inequality? Is God against the wealthy?

What we are going to see today is that God is neither for it nor against it. God wants us to think about poverty and wealth, power and weakness in way that transcends any social solution man has yet dreamed up. And believe me, men have been dreaming for millennia.
Introduction.
When you look at the world, nobody will argue that there is inequality. We have the truly impoverished, the poor, the middle class, the rich and the ultra-rich. And everybody kind of sees that as less than ideal.

The best minds in the world have created political philosophies that address this inequality.

So for example. Capitalism begins with the core concept that your money is your own, and you can do with it what you want. That gives incredible ownership to people and that has created incredible wealth because you take care of the things you’ve worked hard to gain. Nobody will care for you money like you will. Now the downside of this is that the poor generally get overlooked because there’s no motivation in the system to take care of the poor. The rich get richer. The poor stay poor. It’s every man for himself.

Socialism tries to solve the problem from the other side. They see the failures of capitalism toward the poor and they say, "No, your money is not your own. Your money is the people’s, and you have to give it to the community. You have to be selfless and see your wealth as part of a greater system. And that’s great for taking care of the poor but the problem in socialism is there’s no ownership. And when there’s no ownership you lack motivation for being productive. It’s easy to take advantage of the system.

And so you have liberal and conservative approaches to politics that have surged down through the ages.

Recently, we’ve experienced incredible tension in our country, in our schools and even our churches regarding recent advances of critical theory which deconstructs some of these philosophies. In critical theory, society is divided up into two groups. You have the oppressors and the oppressed.

And the goal is to break down those dividing walls in wherever those intersections of power exist.

So you take power away from the dominant race and give it to the minority to address racial inequality.
You take power away from the wealthy and give it to the poor.
You take power away from men and give it to women.
You take power away from families and give it to those who don’t have traditional families.

The goal of critical theory is to break down those power structures.

And this has made inroads into the church because on the surface it sounds a lot like justice.

Does God care about those who are oppressed by racism? Of course he does.
Does God care about the poor and needy? Of course.
Does God care about orphans and widows? Of course, we just read about it.
Does God recognize that cultures can oppress people? Of course.

But the fundamental presuppositions of critical theory are completely incompatible with Christianity because the way the argument is framed you have to choose between one of two wrongheaded ideas.

Either you agree that your power, privilege and money is the problem which means that you also must agree that God hates your power, privilege and money.
And if you say well that doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure it’s right to say that God hates my power, privilege and money then you are forced to admit that God must then hate generosity, equality and justice. Why? Because your power, privilege and money are the very things that are promoting injustice, poverty and inequality.

Do you see the problem? From God’s point of view, that’s all wrong. Completely wrong. Here’s why Christianity is so unique; here’s why it’s so transformational. A Christian realizes that the money he earns and the power he has been given are neither his nor the communities. Nothing we have is ours. It’s all God’s. Our time is his. Our gifts and abilities are his. Our kids are his. Our house is his. Everything is his.

Here’s where it’s so unique. Even though it’s all His, he gives us incredible amount of ownership in that we are a stewards. It’s like being a CEO of a large publicly traded company. That company is not yours but you have tons of decision making and responsibility and power. You have all sorts of freedom in how you manage that business. But you always have to manage it according to the values of the shareholders.

And so it is with God. He let’s you make all sorts of decisions about how you are going to use your time, how you invest your money, what you do with your influence, what you do with your privilege, what sorts of decisions you make. There’s all sorts of freedom. But just like that CEO you have to manage it according to not YOUR values but the values of HIS kingdom.

And one of God’s main kingdom values that we are going to discover in this passage is radical, impartial generosity. So here’s James point:

TRANSFORMED Christians will have OWNERSHIP in being PRODUCTIVE for the PURPOSE of being radically generous to those in need.

We are a conservative church. We have rejected the social justice movement and critical theory as incompatible with the gospel.

But one of the great dangers of conservative churches who have rejected the social justice movements of our day is to think that God doesn’t care about justice or generosity or giving. Oh, he cares. He cares way more than any social justice warrior cares. And today he shows us how to care.
Review
Let’s see how this works out in the text. Last week we observed three tests of genuine faith. In the same way we would test for a genuine gold bar by pouring acid on it, we test for genuine faith by applying the questions James gives us:

And here were the questions:

So everything from last week was moving toward that word TRANSFORMATION. Being transformed by the grace of God will evidence itself in transformed living. That’s the key word TRANSFORMATION. What kind of transformed living? Well he gives us some examples.

That’s how we ended last week. We are in James chapter 2 today. And let’s just begin by reminding ourselves that the chapter breaks we observe in our Bibles are not part of the original letter. James the author didn’t sign off on this chapter break. **In fact, I think if he were to get his hands on this letter he would say, “Why in the world would you stick a chapter break right there?** That’s right in the middle of my thought. Thanks a lot for confusing the human race.”

This whole business about caring for orphans and widows from last week is integrally connected with our text from this week and it will continue on all the way to verse 17 of chapter two

We absolutely need this week to understand last week. A sermon on care for orphans and windows without a sermon on the the sin of partiality would be a horribly incomplete handling of what James is trying to get at.

Now here’s the first point he’s making. Gospel TRANSFORMATION will have an effect on the way we judge one another. And here’s the first TRANSFORMATIONAL effect.

So the command is to show no partiality. Now what does he mean here? What is partiality? Some translations use the word favoritism. I like favoritism because it sounds more like something we do on the playground in JH. Why do I like that? Because adults are just JH boys and girls on the playground in old bodies. Nothing changes.

Here’s a working definition of favoritism. I just got this off the internet:

The Word favoritism in the Greek means literally to “receive the face” and this was a made up word literally rendering a Hebrew word for partiality.

So the idea is someone comes up to you and show you their face. And you say, wow, that’s a pretty looking person and you open your heart to them not knowing anything about their character and who they really are on the inside. You receive the face. That’s kind of dumb. Because we all know that beautiful faces can lie.

Don’t receive the face. Don’t just receive the external. Don’t receive the glitter on the outside.

One of the most illustrative Old Testament examples of this is the story of the anointing of David. God had rejected Saul as King and so he told Samuel the prophet to go and anoint a new king.

1 Samuel 16

So he goes to the house of Jesse and out come all the boys. And they parade in front of Samuel and Samuel lays his eyes on the firstborn and he’s gobsmacked. Wow, look at the talent. Look at the package. He’s got it all. He’s tall, dark, handsome. He’s wicked smart. He’s athletic. He’s artistic. He’s got mad people skills. He’s savvy. He’s got a silver tongue. What does this guy not have going for him?

Surely, this is the guy. What more could God want in a guy?

What he’s saying is this: Don’t apply value judgments to people based on the externals. Don’t “receive the face.”

We are so prone to receiving the face
We are prone to prejudice
We are prone to discrimination.
We are partial.
We play favorites.
God says, "You want to know why Eliab is tall? Because I made him tall. That’s why? Do you think I am impressed by the fact that I gave him his height?
God says, “You want to know why he’s handsome? Because I made him that way. Do you think I am impressed by the good looks that I gave him?”

What I’m looking for is a man who has taken the gifts that I HAVE GIVEN HIM and has stewarded them according to the values of my kingdom. That is my man. Only I can see that, and that is what matters to me.

Man looks on the outward appearance. Man looks on the face. Man receives the face. God looks on the heart. So here’s how James applies it specifically.

So the “gold ring” was an emblem of the upper-level Roman equestrian class. This is like the guy whose got the symbols of wealth. He’s got the watch, the shoes, he’s got the car, he’s got the mansion, he’s got the personal leer jet.

The warning is to not treat this person in some sort of special way because of their wealth. He says don’t make distinctions among yourself? Now practically what does that mean. We can’t help but notice that. What kind of distinction is he warning against? The word distinctions here can be translated divisions. Have you not made divisions within yourself….

And I think the idea is that he’s being tempted to be divided in his loyalty.

Does he care about God’s judgment or man’s?
Does he agree with God’s assessment or man’s assessment.
Does he want the smile of God or the smile of the man with the ring?

Don’t be divided. Don’t be phased by his power. Don’t try to impress the rich man and try to impress God. It won’t work. Don’t be divided. Here’s what James is saying:

Wealth in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Power and beauty in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Education in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Owning businesses in and of itself does not deserve honor.

In our world it sure does. You can buy authority, leadership, status, but that has not place in the church. If you entertain that even for a second you are thinking evil thoughts. Don’t every attempt to combine the world’s standards for honor with faith in Jesus.

What deserves honor is men and women who use their wealth, power, skill, beauty and influence to magnify the name of the Lord. And what also deserves honor, perhaps more honor is men and women who use their lack of wealth, their lack of power, their lack of skill, their lack of beauty their lack of influence to magnify the name of the Lord.

We who hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we don’t care about gifts or lack of gifts. We care about the Lord. The POINT is to live your life as if wealth and power are not the POINT.

God judges on the basis of how you live your life for him. That’s the basis for judgment. Nothing else. How are you living for Jesus?

If you are poor and not living for Jesus you will judged.
If you are rich and not living for Jesus, you will be judged.
If you are rich and living for Jesus you will be rewarded.
If you are poor and living for Jesus, you will be rewarded.

That’s it. It’s not complicated. God rewards and judges impartially.

God built this into his justice system from the beginning. I don’t want wealth to bias justice. Don’t let it blind you. He asked the nation of Israel to disregard position, privilege, power, money when it comes to justice.

Leviticus 19

God wanted the judges of Israel to turn a blind eye to wealth. A rich man might try to say to the judge, “Man, listen, let me off the hook here. I am a man of influence. I am important and if you throw me behind bars, it’s going to have consequences.” That judge should look at him and say, "Who made you rich? God made you rich. God made you powerful." Do you think He’s impressed with the gifts He gave you. He’s not impressed. What He cares about is what you are doing with those gifts. And right now, you are failing.

God cares not so much about equality. What he cares about is stewardship.

It’s really important to realize that being fair does not mean equal in power. He will treat everyone fairly but he does not distribute wealth, power and privilege equally.

There’s a really interesting passage in Romans 2. In Romans 2 God is letting us know that judgment is coming on all people for their actions, both to reward and to condemn. And it will be completely fair judgment but not equal.

Romans 2

This is an interesting passage. He says, I will judge and reward both Jews and Gentiles without partiality, but to the Jew first. What does that mean? Isn’t the fact that God judges the Jew first, creating partiality? No. A Jew has more privilege so he will be judged according to that privilege.

A Jew can’t come to God and say, "Man, give me some special treatment. I am one of your people." God would look at him and say, "I made you a Jew." I am not impressed with that? What did you do with that blessing?

God is never impressed with the externals. Why? Because God is the giver of any external we have. That would be like giving your kid $3 and then your kid expecting to get out of chores because he or she is a person of influence.

God is never impressed with the externals. What he cares about is what you do with the gifts he’s given. Do you manage them according to he values of his kingdom or your kingdom.

So our first question is do we judge based on internals or externals.

Notice the connection between holding to our FAITH and the sin of partiality or favoritism. Those who hold to a proper faith will not play favorites;

Those who have been TRANSFORMED by the gospel have different eyes. They see the world differently. They see reality differently. They see reality through the eyes of faith. Through the eyes of the gospel.

Those who live by faith see wealthy differently. They have conversations with themselves. They say, “Even though my eye tells me this person is poor and my eyes tell me that because they are poor they have very little value, I see through the eye of faith that they are incredibly rich because of their profession of Jesus as Lord. They are heirs of the kingdom. And therefore they have incredible value in the eyes of Jesus Christ. This is child that he redeemed.”

Faith sees a different reality. Faith looks at the material world differently than the one without faith. Faith recognized that Jesus Christ is the giver of everything we have AND he owns everything he’s given.

Which means, no amount of privilege we enjoyed growing up, no matter what form that privilege took, stable family, race, gender, crime free neighborhood, was something we can take credit for.
Which means the natural intellect you have was given to you and you can’t take credit for it.
Which means your people skills, your ability to see people, your conflict resolution skills are a gifts of God and you can’t take credit for how those have propelled you forward in your career?
Which means your business savvy is not something you can take credit for; it is a gift of God.
Which means, no amount of money we earned was something we can take credit for.

To take credit for God’s stuff as if it were your stuff and make distinctions of superiority on the basis of that stuff is an abandonment of faith. You have stopped looking through the eyes of heaven. And you are only looking through the eyes of earth.

What James is saying here, is simply this: if you become enslaved to visible things, (in other words, if you are impressed by them), if you become enslaved to visible things it calls into question your faith in invisible things, things God has told you are true but you cannot see.

Enslavement to visible things like wealth and power calls into question our real faith in invisible things like heaven and our identity in Christ. Can we really say we value and trust God’s assessment of people while honoring people according to a standard that God rejects?

I was thinking about this a lot this week. I was really trying to think, “Why do we get this wrong so badly.” I was trying to nail down practices we have as Christians that create wrong ideas about money and power.

You know what I stumbled upon. I think we reinforce these worldly ideas in our prayers of thankfulness. This is thanksgiving season. Right? What do we do in our services?

We say, “Thank you God for all your wonderful gifts!” What could be more appropriate than that? Here’s how our prayers might go? *“God thank you for the money you’ve given us.* It’s only by your divine pleasure that you have given us anything. Thank you for the kids you’ve given us. Lord, they are gifts and we would have no kids without you. Thank you for the home you’ve given us. Lord, it’s so much more than we deserve!”

You might say, "How in the world could that be a bad prayer? That’s a beautiful prayer." It is. But it’s dangerously incomplete and it implies something dangerously incorrect. It correctly acknowledges that God is the source, but it incorrectly acknowledges ownership.

When God give us a home, do we then own it? Who actually owns the property, us or God? Does God give us the money and now we are free to do with it as we please? No strings attached. Or are there strings attached. Is it actually our money?

You see when we pray, “Thank you God for giving us a car or home.” The way we self-conceive of that prayer of thanksgiving is that the car or home is ours. It’s not ours. The deed is in his name. The more accurate prayer would be, “God thank you for allowing me to live in your home.* Thank you for the privilege of stewarding your money and your house and your kids. Help me to take that stewardship seriously and to manage your kingdom resources according to your kingdom values. Help me never to think of your resources as my own.” That’s a VERY, VERY different prayer. I actually had a really hard time praying that this week. It revealed something pretty dangerous in my heart.*

This is why FAITH and FAVORITISM are related. Our eyes tell us we own it. Our eyes tell us we can take credit for it. The world tells us that. The world tells us we have VALUE because it’s our stuff.

But FAITH tells us a different story. It was God. It is God’s. And if we can’t take credit for it, then that means that the guy in difficult situation could just have easily been us and we could have just as easily been him. So why am I not him? Why has God given me this position of privilege and power?

Well, the Bible tells us very clearly. If you are rich in power, rich in wealth, rich in influence? And most of us are… What are the rich to do?

1 Timothy 6

He doesn’t tell the rich to apologize for their richness. Neither does he tell the rich to gloat in their richness. It’s not their richness. It’s God’s wealth that he has distributed. Therefore, steward it according to the values of the kingdom. And what are the values of the kingdom? Radical generosity. Radical.

Take care of the orphan and widow. Notice what true religion is according chapter 1:27. True religion isn’t giving money to orphans and widows. It easy for a rich person to throw money at things. They make problems go away all the time by throwing money. True religion is visiting orphas and widows. True religion is giving your time. It’s caring. It’s using your position of influence to care. That may involve money (it probably will), but it’s mostly about time. It’s about caring.

So the key idea here is that living by faith means, placing value on what have been told is true but cannot see. That’s FAITH. Faith is living by what we know is true even though our eyes tell us something else.

Let me give you an example here. Let’s say you need to go in for surgery. And you need a heart transplant. And you are terrified. But you do your research and you find the best doctor in the world. He’s an incredibly skilled surgeon. He’s done 5000 transplants and never lost a patient. To him, a heart surgery is like tying a pair of shoes. No big deal.

So you rest assured in the evidence. The evidence is overwhelming. So you sign up for the surgery, and on the day of surgery, you get there, and you smell the antiseptic. You go into the hospital, and maybe you see a few surgical tools lying around. You see some bloody gloves lying on the table, and you panic. You chicken out and say, “I can’t do it.”

What has happened? You’ve lost your confidence. You lost your resolve not because you got new information. You lost your confidence because you switched from going by FAITH to going by SIGHT.

You’re now being controlled by what you see, not by what you know.
You’re being controlled by appearances, not the facts.
You’re being controlled by feelings instead of data and living testimony.

So when it comes to making judgments about people? Are you going to walk by faith or by sight? Are you going to say, that person matters because they are made in the image of God or because they have zeros on a paycheck? Are you going to walk by faith or sight?

Faith is not the opposite of thinking. Faith is thinking. Doubt happens when we stop thinking and start looking.

So if we walk by faith, we realize that our value only comes by being his child. Any amount of wealth, possessions, talents, gifts, all of them are the Lords. So our job is to then steward those gifts. How will we do that? That’s the final question.

There is a way to wield power and wealth that honors the Lord and cares for his children and there is a way to do it that dishonors the Lord and crushes his children.

Notice the criticism of James. He’s not criticizing the fact that power exists. He’s criticizing the abuse and misuse of it. And there’s two people he criticizes in the text.

The obvious one is the wealthy man. He critizes the wealthy and the way they treat this poor man. You wealthy people had power to bless this poor man, but instead you drug him into court and oppressed him. That’s evil.

But he’s also criticizing the way the church treated this poor man. He said, you as a usher in the church had power also. You had power to honor the poor but you used your power to dishonor him.

And instead you honored the one who should have been dishonored because the way he treated the poor. You, Mr. Usher, treated the poor the same way the rich did.

You either use your wealthy to oppress or to bless. You either oppress the poor or you bless the widow and orphan. This James’ point.

Transformed living wants to use power, privilege and wealthy to bless, to be like Jesus, who from the storehouses of heavenly blessing gave and gave to us who were orphans. He adopted us. He lavished on us the riches of glorious grace. He made us heirs of his kingdom.

You see, he’s not saying, get rid of all distinctions. Break down the walls of power. He’s not saying, the goal is to make you equal across all gender, social and economic levels. But he is saying to view your wealth like Jesus. Let’s pop back up to verse 5.

That’s an interesting verse. On the one hand, he is probably pointing out something that has been true throughout history; as a general rule, in the history of the world, revival starts with the poor.

The foolish things of the world shame the wise.

Most of the early Christians were poor. Most of the great revivals happened among the poor. Do you know why? Poor people very often can see the game.

When you’re playing these social games and you’re winning, you don’t see that it’s a game, and you don’t like anybody calling it a game. It’s when you’re losing you like to call it a game. You know how that is.

All of us can look back on JH and HS and see that there was a social game going on. When I was in JH, let me just say it kindly, I was losing that game. *And because I was losing, it was easy for me to look on and say, “Those guys are just playing games.* I don’t want to be part of it.”
But if you were winning, you probably didn’t think of it as a game. You thought it very important. This all requires incredible concentration and observation. Great things were at stake.

The poor are rich because they can see this whole wealthy thing, is a game. They sense their need. That’s the real blessing. The poor see it. They aren’t in the game. Their dependence on God isn’t masked by money.

All human beings are poor, we are spiritually bankrupt and we are all dependent on Jesus Christ for EVERYTHING.

FAITH acknowledges that no matter what your station in life. So if you have been given much you steward it according to God’s kingdom values. And if you have been given little, that too is a position that needs to be stewarded according to God’s kingdom values.

The POINT is to live your life as if wealth and power are not the POINT.

So if you are rich or if you are poor, do you use your wealth or lack of wealth as an object lesson for the mercy and grace of God to the undeserving? To help people see that wealth is not the POINT.

That’s really the question.

Slideshow for this message is available

Introduction
James 1-2
The Passage is Confusing
What is this passage teaching? Clearly it has something to say about inequality. The fact that we are told to minister to the orphans and widows who are clearly the poor and to not be partial toward the wealthy means there’s a sort of concern about inequality woven into the fabric of this passage. The rich have power and influence and the poor don’t. But what is the point? Is this passage teaching that God is against this sort of economic inequality? Is God against the wealthy?

What we are going to see today is that God is neither for it nor against it. God wants us to think about poverty and wealth, power and weakness in way that transcends any social solution man has yet dreamed up. And believe me, men have been dreaming for millennia.
Introduction.
When you look at the world, nobody will argue that there is inequality. We have the truly impoverished, the poor, the middle class, the rich and the ultra-rich. And everybody kind of sees that as less than ideal.

The best minds in the world have created political philosophies that address this inequality.

So for example. Capitalism begins with the core concept that your money is your own, and you can do with it what you want. That gives incredible ownership to people and that has created incredible wealth because you take care of the things you’ve worked hard to gain. Nobody will care for you money like you will. Now the downside of this is that the poor generally get overlooked because there’s no motivation in the system to take care of the poor. The rich get richer. The poor stay poor. It’s every man for himself.

Socialism tries to solve the problem from the other side. They see the failures of capitalism toward the poor and they say, "No, your money is not your own. Your money is the people’s, and you have to give it to the community. You have to be selfless and see your wealth as part of a greater system. And that’s great for taking care of the poor but the problem in socialism is there’s no ownership. And when there’s no ownership you lack motivation for being productive. It’s easy to take advantage of the system.

And so you have liberal and conservative approaches to politics that have surged down through the ages.

Recently, we’ve experienced incredible tension in our country, in our schools and even our churches regarding recent advances of critical theory which deconstructs some of these philosophies. In critical theory, society is divided up into two groups. You have the oppressors and the oppressed.

And the goal is to break down those dividing walls in wherever those intersections of power exist.

So you take power away from the dominant race and give it to the minority to address racial inequality.
You take power away from the wealthy and give it to the poor.
You take power away from men and give it to women.
You take power away from families and give it to those who don’t have traditional families.

The goal of critical theory is to break down those power structures.

And this has made inroads into the church because on the surface it sounds a lot like justice.

Does God care about those who are oppressed by racism? Of course he does.
Does God care about the poor and needy? Of course.
Does God care about orphans and widows? Of course, we just read about it.
Does God recognize that cultures can oppress people? Of course.

But the fundamental presuppositions of critical theory are completely incompatible with Christianity because the way the argument is framed you have to choose between one of two wrongheaded ideas.

Either you agree that your power, privilege and money is the problem which means that you also must agree that God hates your power, privilege and money.
And if you say well that doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure it’s right to say that God hates my power, privilege and money then you are forced to admit that God must then hate generosity, equality and justice. Why? Because your power, privilege and money are the very things that are promoting injustice, poverty and inequality.

Do you see the problem? From God’s point of view, that’s all wrong. Completely wrong. Here’s why Christianity is so unique; here’s why it’s so transformational. A Christian realizes that the money he earns and the power he has been given are neither his nor the communities. Nothing we have is ours. It’s all God’s. Our time is his. Our gifts and abilities are his. Our kids are his. Our house is his. Everything is his.

Here’s where it’s so unique. Even though it’s all His, he gives us incredible amount of ownership in that we are a stewards. It’s like being a CEO of a large publicly traded company. That company is not yours but you have tons of decision making and responsibility and power. You have all sorts of freedom in how you manage that business. But you always have to manage it according to the values of the shareholders.

And so it is with God. He let’s you make all sorts of decisions about how you are going to use your time, how you invest your money, what you do with your influence, what you do with your privilege, what sorts of decisions you make. There’s all sorts of freedom. But just like that CEO you have to manage it according to not YOUR values but the values of HIS kingdom.

And one of God’s main kingdom values that we are going to discover in this passage is radical, impartial generosity. So here’s James point:

TRANSFORMED Christians will have OWNERSHIP in being PRODUCTIVE for the PURPOSE of being radically generous to those in need.

We are a conservative church. We have rejected the social justice movement and critical theory as incompatible with the gospel.

But one of the great dangers of conservative churches who have rejected the social justice movements of our day is to think that God doesn’t care about justice or generosity or giving. Oh, he cares. He cares way more than any social justice warrior cares. And today he shows us how to care.
Review
Let’s see how this works out in the text. Last week we observed three tests of genuine faith. In the same way we would test for a genuine gold bar by pouring acid on it, we test for genuine faith by applying the questions James gives us:

And here were the questions:

So everything from last week was moving toward that word TRANSFORMATION. Being transformed by the grace of God will evidence itself in transformed living. That’s the key word TRANSFORMATION. What kind of transformed living? Well he gives us some examples.

That’s how we ended last week. We are in James chapter 2 today. And let’s just begin by reminding ourselves that the chapter breaks we observe in our Bibles are not part of the original letter. James the author didn’t sign off on this chapter break. **In fact, I think if he were to get his hands on this letter he would say, “Why in the world would you stick a chapter break right there?** That’s right in the middle of my thought. Thanks a lot for confusing the human race.”

This whole business about caring for orphans and widows from last week is integrally connected with our text from this week and it will continue on all the way to verse 17 of chapter two

We absolutely need this week to understand last week. A sermon on care for orphans and windows without a sermon on the the sin of partiality would be a horribly incomplete handling of what James is trying to get at.

Now here’s the first point he’s making. Gospel TRANSFORMATION will have an effect on the way we judge one another. And here’s the first TRANSFORMATIONAL effect.

So the command is to show no partiality. Now what does he mean here? What is partiality? Some translations use the word favoritism. I like favoritism because it sounds more like something we do on the playground in JH. Why do I like that? Because adults are just JH boys and girls on the playground in old bodies. Nothing changes.

Here’s a working definition of favoritism. I just got this off the internet:

The Word favoritism in the Greek means literally to “receive the face” and this was a made up word literally rendering a Hebrew word for partiality.

So the idea is someone comes up to you and show you their face. And you say, wow, that’s a pretty looking person and you open your heart to them not knowing anything about their character and who they really are on the inside. You receive the face. That’s kind of dumb. Because we all know that beautiful faces can lie.

Don’t receive the face. Don’t just receive the external. Don’t receive the glitter on the outside.

One of the most illustrative Old Testament examples of this is the story of the anointing of David. God had rejected Saul as King and so he told Samuel the prophet to go and anoint a new king.

1 Samuel 16

So he goes to the house of Jesse and out come all the boys. And they parade in front of Samuel and Samuel lays his eyes on the firstborn and he’s gobsmacked. Wow, look at the talent. Look at the package. He’s got it all. He’s tall, dark, handsome. He’s wicked smart. He’s athletic. He’s artistic. He’s got mad people skills. He’s savvy. He’s got a silver tongue. What does this guy not have going for him?

Surely, this is the guy. What more could God want in a guy?

What he’s saying is this: Don’t apply value judgments to people based on the externals. Don’t “receive the face.”

We are so prone to receiving the face
We are prone to prejudice
We are prone to discrimination.
We are partial.
We play favorites.
God says, "You want to know why Eliab is tall? Because I made him tall. That’s why? Do you think I am impressed by the fact that I gave him his height?
God says, “You want to know why he’s handsome? Because I made him that way. Do you think I am impressed by the good looks that I gave him?”

What I’m looking for is a man who has taken the gifts that I HAVE GIVEN HIM and has stewarded them according to the values of my kingdom. That is my man. Only I can see that, and that is what matters to me.

Man looks on the outward appearance. Man looks on the face. Man receives the face. God looks on the heart. So here’s how James applies it specifically.

So the “gold ring” was an emblem of the upper-level Roman equestrian class. This is like the guy whose got the symbols of wealth. He’s got the watch, the shoes, he’s got the car, he’s got the mansion, he’s got the personal leer jet.

The warning is to not treat this person in some sort of special way because of their wealth. He says don’t make distinctions among yourself? Now practically what does that mean. We can’t help but notice that. What kind of distinction is he warning against? The word distinctions here can be translated divisions. Have you not made divisions within yourself….

And I think the idea is that he’s being tempted to be divided in his loyalty.

Does he care about God’s judgment or man’s?
Does he agree with God’s assessment or man’s assessment.
Does he want the smile of God or the smile of the man with the ring?

Don’t be divided. Don’t be phased by his power. Don’t try to impress the rich man and try to impress God. It won’t work. Don’t be divided. Here’s what James is saying:

Wealth in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Power and beauty in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Education in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Owning businesses in and of itself does not deserve honor.

In our world it sure does. You can buy authority, leadership, status, but that has not place in the church. If you entertain that even for a second you are thinking evil thoughts. Don’t every attempt to combine the world’s standards for honor with faith in Jesus.

What deserves honor is men and women who use their wealth, power, skill, beauty and influence to magnify the name of the Lord. And what also deserves honor, perhaps more honor is men and women who use their lack of wealth, their lack of power, their lack of skill, their lack of beauty their lack of influence to magnify the name of the Lord.

We who hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we don’t care about gifts or lack of gifts. We care about the Lord. The POINT is to live your life as if wealth and power are not the POINT.

God judges on the basis of how you live your life for him. That’s the basis for judgment. Nothing else. How are you living for Jesus?

If you are poor and not living for Jesus you will judged.
If you are rich and not living for Jesus, you will be judged.
If you are rich and living for Jesus you will be rewarded.
If you are poor and living for Jesus, you will be rewarded.

That’s it. It’s not complicated. God rewards and judges impartially.

God built this into his justice system from the beginning. I don’t want wealth to bias justice. Don’t let it blind you. He asked the nation of Israel to disregard position, privilege, power, money when it comes to justice.

Leviticus 19

God wanted the judges of Israel to turn a blind eye to wealth. A rich man might try to say to the judge, “Man, listen, let me off the hook here. I am a man of influence. I am important and if you throw me behind bars, it’s going to have consequences.” That judge should look at him and say, "Who made you rich? God made you rich. God made you powerful." Do you think He’s impressed with the gifts He gave you. He’s not impressed. What He cares about is what you are doing with those gifts. And right now, you are failing.

God cares not so much about equality. What he cares about is stewardship.

It’s really important to realize that being fair does not mean equal in power. He will treat everyone fairly but he does not distribute wealth, power and privilege equally.

There’s a really interesting passage in Romans 2. In Romans 2 God is letting us know that judgment is coming on all people for their actions, both to reward and to condemn. And it will be completely fair judgment but not equal.

Romans 2

This is an interesting passage. He says, I will judge and reward both Jews and Gentiles without partiality, but to the Jew first. What does that mean? Isn’t the fact that God judges the Jew first, creating partiality? No. A Jew has more privilege so he will be judged according to that privilege.

A Jew can’t come to God and say, "Man, give me some special treatment. I am one of your people." God would look at him and say, "I made you a Jew." I am not impressed with that? What did you do with that blessing?

God is never impressed with the externals. Why? Because God is the giver of any external we have. That would be like giving your kid $3 and then your kid expecting to get out of chores because he or she is a person of influence.

God is never impressed with the externals. What he cares about is what you do with the gifts he’s given. Do you manage them according to he values of his kingdom or your kingdom.

So our first question is do we judge based on internals or externals.

Notice the connection between holding to our FAITH and the sin of partiality or favoritism. Those who hold to a proper faith will not play favorites;

Those who have been TRANSFORMED by the gospel have different eyes. They see the world differently. They see reality differently. They see reality through the eyes of faith. Through the eyes of the gospel.

Those who live by faith see wealthy differently. They have conversations with themselves. They say, “Even though my eye tells me this person is poor and my eyes tell me that because they are poor they have very little value, I see through the eye of faith that they are incredibly rich because of their profession of Jesus as Lord. They are heirs of the kingdom. And therefore they have incredible value in the eyes of Jesus Christ. This is child that he redeemed.”

Faith sees a different reality. Faith looks at the material world differently than the one without faith. Faith recognized that Jesus Christ is the giver of everything we have AND he owns everything he’s given.

Which means, no amount of privilege we enjoyed growing up, no matter what form that privilege took, stable family, race, gender, crime free neighborhood, was something we can take credit for.
Which means the natural intellect you have was given to you and you can’t take credit for it.
Which means your people skills, your ability to see people, your conflict resolution skills are a gifts of God and you can’t take credit for how those have propelled you forward in your career?
Which means your business savvy is not something you can take credit for; it is a gift of God.
Which means, no amount of money we earned was something we can take credit for.

To take credit for God’s stuff as if it were your stuff and make distinctions of superiority on the basis of that stuff is an abandonment of faith. You have stopped looking through the eyes of heaven. And you are only looking through the eyes of earth.

What James is saying here, is simply this: if you become enslaved to visible things, (in other words, if you are impressed by them), if you become enslaved to visible things it calls into question your faith in invisible things, things God has told you are true but you cannot see.

Enslavement to visible things like wealth and power calls into question our real faith in invisible things like heaven and our identity in Christ. Can we really say we value and trust God’s assessment of people while honoring people according to a standard that God rejects?

I was thinking about this a lot this week. I was really trying to think, “Why do we get this wrong so badly.” I was trying to nail down practices we have as Christians that create wrong ideas about money and power.

You know what I stumbled upon. I think we reinforce these worldly ideas in our prayers of thankfulness. This is thanksgiving season. Right? What do we do in our services?

We say, “Thank you God for all your wonderful gifts!” What could be more appropriate than that? Here’s how our prayers might go? *“God thank you for the money you’ve given us.* It’s only by your divine pleasure that you have given us anything. Thank you for the kids you’ve given us. Lord, they are gifts and we would have no kids without you. Thank you for the home you’ve given us. Lord, it’s so much more than we deserve!”

You might say, "How in the world could that be a bad prayer? That’s a beautiful prayer." It is. But it’s dangerously incomplete and it implies something dangerously incorrect. It correctly acknowledges that God is the source, but it incorrectly acknowledges ownership.

When God give us a home, do we then own it? Who actually owns the property, us or God? Does God give us the money and now we are free to do with it as we please? No strings attached. Or are there strings attached. Is it actually our money?

You see when we pray, “Thank you God for giving us a car or home.” The way we self-conceive of that prayer of thanksgiving is that the car or home is ours. It’s not ours. The deed is in his name. The more accurate prayer would be, “God thank you for allowing me to live in your home.* Thank you for the privilege of stewarding your money and your house and your kids. Help me to take that stewardship seriously and to manage your kingdom resources according to your kingdom values. Help me never to think of your resources as my own.” That’s a VERY, VERY different prayer. I actually had a really hard time praying that this week. It revealed something pretty dangerous in my heart.*

This is why FAITH and FAVORITISM are related. Our eyes tell us we own it. Our eyes tell us we can take credit for it. The world tells us that. The world tells us we have VALUE because it’s our stuff.

But FAITH tells us a different story. It was God. It is God’s. And if we can’t take credit for it, then that means that the guy in difficult situation could just have easily been us and we could have just as easily been him. So why am I not him? Why has God given me this position of privilege and power?

Well, the Bible tells us very clearly. If you are rich in power, rich in wealth, rich in influence? And most of us are… What are the rich to do?

1 Timothy 6

He doesn’t tell the rich to apologize for their richness. Neither does he tell the rich to gloat in their richness. It’s not their richness. It’s God’s wealth that he has distributed. Therefore, steward it according to the values of the kingdom. And what are the values of the kingdom? Radical generosity. Radical.

Take care of the orphan and widow. Notice what true religion is according chapter 1:27. True religion isn’t giving money to orphans and widows. It easy for a rich person to throw money at things. They make problems go away all the time by throwing money. True religion is visiting orphas and widows. True religion is giving your time. It’s caring. It’s using your position of influence to care. That may involve money (it probably will), but it’s mostly about time. It’s about caring.

So the key idea here is that living by faith means, placing value on what have been told is true but cannot see. That’s FAITH. Faith is living by what we know is true even though our eyes tell us something else.

Let me give you an example here. Let’s say you need to go in for surgery. And you need a heart transplant. And you are terrified. But you do your research and you find the best doctor in the world. He’s an incredibly skilled surgeon. He’s done 5000 transplants and never lost a patient. To him, a heart surgery is like tying a pair of shoes. No big deal.

So you rest assured in the evidence. The evidence is overwhelming. So you sign up for the surgery, and on the day of surgery, you get there, and you smell the antiseptic. You go into the hospital, and maybe you see a few surgical tools lying around. You see some bloody gloves lying on the table, and you panic. You chicken out and say, “I can’t do it.”

What has happened? You’ve lost your confidence. You lost your resolve not because you got new information. You lost your confidence because you switched from going by FAITH to going by SIGHT.

You’re now being controlled by what you see, not by what you know.
You’re being controlled by appearances, not the facts.
You’re being controlled by feelings instead of data and living testimony.

So when it comes to making judgments about people? Are you going to walk by faith or by sight? Are you going to say, that person matters because they are made in the image of God or because they have zeros on a paycheck? Are you going to walk by faith or sight?

Faith is not the opposite of thinking. Faith is thinking. Doubt happens when we stop thinking and start looking.

So if we walk by faith, we realize that our value only comes by being his child. Any amount of wealth, possessions, talents, gifts, all of them are the Lords. So our job is to then steward those gifts. How will we do that? That’s the final question.

There is a way to wield power and wealth that honors the Lord and cares for his children and there is a way to do it that dishonors the Lord and crushes his children.

Notice the criticism of James. He’s not criticizing the fact that power exists. He’s criticizing the abuse and misuse of it. And there’s two people he criticizes in the text.

The obvious one is the wealthy man. He critizes the wealthy and the way they treat this poor man. You wealthy people had power to bless this poor man, but instead you drug him into court and oppressed him. That’s evil.

But he’s also criticizing the way the church treated this poor man. He said, you as a usher in the church had power also. You had power to honor the poor but you used your power to dishonor him.

And instead you honored the one who should have been dishonored because the way he treated the poor. You, Mr. Usher, treated the poor the same way the rich did.

You either use your wealthy to oppress or to bless. You either oppress the poor or you bless the widow and orphan. This James’ point.

Transformed living wants to use power, privilege and wealthy to bless, to be like Jesus, who from the storehouses of heavenly blessing gave and gave to us who were orphans. He adopted us. He lavished on us the riches of glorious grace. He made us heirs of his kingdom.

You see, he’s not saying, get rid of all distinctions. Break down the walls of power. He’s not saying, the goal is to make you equal across all gender, social and economic levels. But he is saying to view your wealth like Jesus. Let’s pop back up to verse 5.

That’s an interesting verse. On the one hand, he is probably pointing out something that has been true throughout history; as a general rule, in the history of the world, revival starts with the poor.

The foolish things of the world shame the wise.

Most of the early Christians were poor. Most of the great revivals happened among the poor. Do you know why? Poor people very often can see the game.

When you’re playing these social games and you’re winning, you don’t see that it’s a game, and you don’t like anybody calling it a game. It’s when you’re losing you like to call it a game. You know how that is.

All of us can look back on JH and HS and see that there was a social game going on. When I was in JH, let me just say it kindly, I was losing that game. *And because I was losing, it was easy for me to look on and say, “Those guys are just playing games.* I don’t want to be part of it.”
But if you were winning, you probably didn’t think of it as a game. You thought it very important. This all requires incredible concentration and observation. Great things were at stake.

The poor are rich because they can see this whole wealthy thing, is a game. They sense their need. That’s the real blessing. The poor see it. They aren’t in the game. Their dependence on God isn’t masked by money.

All human beings are poor, we are spiritually bankrupt and we are all dependent on Jesus Christ for EVERYTHING.

FAITH acknowledges that no matter what your station in life. So if you have been given much you steward it according to God’s kingdom values. And if you have been given little, that too is a position that needs to be stewarded according to God’s kingdom values.

The POINT is to live your life as if wealth and power are not the POINT.

So if you are rich or if you are poor, do you use your wealth or lack of wealth as an object lesson for the mercy and grace of God to the undeserving? To help people see that wealth is not the POINT.

That’s really the question.

Introduction
James 1-2
The Passage is Confusing
What is this passage teaching? Clearly it has something to say about inequality. The fact that we are told to minister to the orphans and widows who are clearly the poor and to not be partial toward the wealthy means there’s a sort of concern about inequality woven into the fabric of this passage. The rich have power and influence and the poor don’t. But what is the point? Is this passage teaching that God is against this sort of economic inequality? Is God against the wealthy?

What we are going to see today is that God is neither for it nor against it. God wants us to think about poverty and wealth, power and weakness in way that transcends any social solution man has yet dreamed up. And believe me, men have been dreaming for millennia.
Introduction.
When you look at the world, nobody will argue that there is inequality. We have the truly impoverished, the poor, the middle class, the rich and the ultra-rich. And everybody kind of sees that as less than ideal.

The best minds in the world have created political philosophies that address this inequality.

So for example. Capitalism begins with the core concept that your money is your own, and you can do with it what you want. That gives incredible ownership to people and that has created incredible wealth because you take care of the things you’ve worked hard to gain. Nobody will care for you money like you will. Now the downside of this is that the poor generally get overlooked because there’s no motivation in the system to take care of the poor. The rich get richer. The poor stay poor. It’s every man for himself.

Socialism tries to solve the problem from the other side. They see the failures of capitalism toward the poor and they say, "No, your money is not your own. Your money is the people’s, and you have to give it to the community. You have to be selfless and see your wealth as part of a greater system. And that’s great for taking care of the poor but the problem in socialism is there’s no ownership. And when there’s no ownership you lack motivation for being productive. It’s easy to take advantage of the system.

And so you have liberal and conservative approaches to politics that have surged down through the ages.

Recently, we’ve experienced incredible tension in our country, in our schools and even our churches regarding recent advances of critical theory which deconstructs some of these philosophies. In critical theory, society is divided up into two groups. You have the oppressors and the oppressed.

And the goal is to break down those dividing walls in wherever those intersections of power exist.

So you take power away from the dominant race and give it to the minority to address racial inequality.
You take power away from the wealthy and give it to the poor.
You take power away from men and give it to women.
You take power away from families and give it to those who don’t have traditional families.

The goal of critical theory is to break down those power structures.

And this has made inroads into the church because on the surface it sounds a lot like justice.

Does God care about those who are oppressed by racism? Of course he does.
Does God care about the poor and needy? Of course.
Does God care about orphans and widows? Of course, we just read about it.
Does God recognize that cultures can oppress people? Of course.

But the fundamental presuppositions of critical theory are completely incompatible with Christianity because the way the argument is framed you have to choose between one of two wrongheaded ideas.

Either you agree that your power, privilege and money is the problem which means that you also must agree that God hates your power, privilege and money.
And if you say well that doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure it’s right to say that God hates my power, privilege and money then you are forced to admit that God must then hate generosity, equality and justice. Why? Because your power, privilege and money are the very things that are promoting injustice, poverty and inequality.

Do you see the problem? From God’s point of view, that’s all wrong. Completely wrong. Here’s why Christianity is so unique; here’s why it’s so transformational. A Christian realizes that the money he earns and the power he has been given are neither his nor the communities. Nothing we have is ours. It’s all God’s. Our time is his. Our gifts and abilities are his. Our kids are his. Our house is his. Everything is his.

Here’s where it’s so unique. Even though it’s all His, he gives us incredible amount of ownership in that we are a stewards. It’s like being a CEO of a large publicly traded company. That company is not yours but you have tons of decision making and responsibility and power. You have all sorts of freedom in how you manage that business. But you always have to manage it according to the values of the shareholders.

And so it is with God. He let’s you make all sorts of decisions about how you are going to use your time, how you invest your money, what you do with your influence, what you do with your privilege, what sorts of decisions you make. There’s all sorts of freedom. But just like that CEO you have to manage it according to not YOUR values but the values of HIS kingdom.

And one of God’s main kingdom values that we are going to discover in this passage is radical, impartial generosity. So here’s James point:

TRANSFORMED Christians will have OWNERSHIP in being PRODUCTIVE for the PURPOSE of being radically generous to those in need.

We are a conservative church. We have rejected the social justice movement and critical theory as incompatible with the gospel.

But one of the great dangers of conservative churches who have rejected the social justice movements of our day is to think that God doesn’t care about justice or generosity or giving. Oh, he cares. He cares way more than any social justice warrior cares. And today he shows us how to care.
Review
Let’s see how this works out in the text. Last week we observed three tests of genuine faith. In the same way we would test for a genuine gold bar by pouring acid on it, we test for genuine faith by applying the questions James gives us:

And here were the questions:

So everything from last week was moving toward that word TRANSFORMATION. Being transformed by the grace of God will evidence itself in transformed living. That’s the key word TRANSFORMATION. What kind of transformed living? Well he gives us some examples.

That’s how we ended last week. We are in James chapter 2 today. And let’s just begin by reminding ourselves that the chapter breaks we observe in our Bibles are not part of the original letter. James the author didn’t sign off on this chapter break. **In fact, I think if he were to get his hands on this letter he would say, “Why in the world would you stick a chapter break right there?** That’s right in the middle of my thought. Thanks a lot for confusing the human race.”

This whole business about caring for orphans and widows from last week is integrally connected with our text from this week and it will continue on all the way to verse 17 of chapter two

We absolutely need this week to understand last week. A sermon on care for orphans and windows without a sermon on the the sin of partiality would be a horribly incomplete handling of what James is trying to get at.

Now here’s the first point he’s making. Gospel TRANSFORMATION will have an effect on the way we judge one another. And here’s the first TRANSFORMATIONAL effect.

So the command is to show no partiality. Now what does he mean here? What is partiality? Some translations use the word favoritism. I like favoritism because it sounds more like something we do on the playground in JH. Why do I like that? Because adults are just JH boys and girls on the playground in old bodies. Nothing changes.

Here’s a working definition of favoritism. I just got this off the internet:

The Word favoritism in the Greek means literally to “receive the face” and this was a made up word literally rendering a Hebrew word for partiality.

So the idea is someone comes up to you and show you their face. And you say, wow, that’s a pretty looking person and you open your heart to them not knowing anything about their character and who they really are on the inside. You receive the face. That’s kind of dumb. Because we all know that beautiful faces can lie.

Don’t receive the face. Don’t just receive the external. Don’t receive the glitter on the outside.

One of the most illustrative Old Testament examples of this is the story of the anointing of David. God had rejected Saul as King and so he told Samuel the prophet to go and anoint a new king.

1 Samuel 16

So he goes to the house of Jesse and out come all the boys. And they parade in front of Samuel and Samuel lays his eyes on the firstborn and he’s gobsmacked. Wow, look at the talent. Look at the package. He’s got it all. He’s tall, dark, handsome. He’s wicked smart. He’s athletic. He’s artistic. He’s got mad people skills. He’s savvy. He’s got a silver tongue. What does this guy not have going for him?

Surely, this is the guy. What more could God want in a guy?

What he’s saying is this: Don’t apply value judgments to people based on the externals. Don’t “receive the face.”

We are so prone to receiving the face
We are prone to prejudice
We are prone to discrimination.
We are partial.
We play favorites.
God says, "You want to know why Eliab is tall? Because I made him tall. That’s why? Do you think I am impressed by the fact that I gave him his height?
God says, “You want to know why he’s handsome? Because I made him that way. Do you think I am impressed by the good looks that I gave him?”

What I’m looking for is a man who has taken the gifts that I HAVE GIVEN HIM and has stewarded them according to the values of my kingdom. That is my man. Only I can see that, and that is what matters to me.

Man looks on the outward appearance. Man looks on the face. Man receives the face. God looks on the heart. So here’s how James applies it specifically.

So the “gold ring” was an emblem of the upper-level Roman equestrian class. This is like the guy whose got the symbols of wealth. He’s got the watch, the shoes, he’s got the car, he’s got the mansion, he’s got the personal leer jet.

The warning is to not treat this person in some sort of special way because of their wealth. He says don’t make distinctions among yourself? Now practically what does that mean. We can’t help but notice that. What kind of distinction is he warning against? The word distinctions here can be translated divisions. Have you not made divisions within yourself….

And I think the idea is that he’s being tempted to be divided in his loyalty.

Does he care about God’s judgment or man’s?
Does he agree with God’s assessment or man’s assessment.
Does he want the smile of God or the smile of the man with the ring?

Don’t be divided. Don’t be phased by his power. Don’t try to impress the rich man and try to impress God. It won’t work. Don’t be divided. Here’s what James is saying:

Wealth in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Power and beauty in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Education in and of itself does not deserve honor.
Owning businesses in and of itself does not deserve honor.

In our world it sure does. You can buy authority, leadership, status, but that has not place in the church. If you entertain that even for a second you are thinking evil thoughts. Don’t every attempt to combine the world’s standards for honor with faith in Jesus.

What deserves honor is men and women who use their wealth, power, skill, beauty and influence to magnify the name of the Lord. And what also deserves honor, perhaps more honor is men and women who use their lack of wealth, their lack of power, their lack of skill, their lack of beauty their lack of influence to magnify the name of the Lord.

We who hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we don’t care about gifts or lack of gifts. We care about the Lord. The POINT is to live your life as if wealth and power are not the POINT.

God judges on the basis of how you live your life for him. That’s the basis for judgment. Nothing else. How are you living for Jesus?

If you are poor and not living for Jesus you will judged.
If you are rich and not living for Jesus, you will be judged.
If you are rich and living for Jesus you will be rewarded.
If you are poor and living for Jesus, you will be rewarded.

That’s it. It’s not complicated. God rewards and judges impartially.

God built this into his justice system from the beginning. I don’t want wealth to bias justice. Don’t let it blind you. He asked the nation of Israel to disregard position, privilege, power, money when it comes to justice.

Leviticus 19

God wanted the judges of Israel to turn a blind eye to wealth. A rich man might try to say to the judge, “Man, listen, let me off the hook here. I am a man of influence. I am important and if you throw me behind bars, it’s going to have consequences.” That judge should look at him and say, "Who made you rich? God made you rich. God made you powerful." Do you think He’s impressed with the gifts He gave you. He’s not impressed. What He cares about is what you are doing with those gifts. And right now, you are failing.

God cares not so much about equality. What he cares about is stewardship.

It’s really important to realize that being fair does not mean equal in power. He will treat everyone fairly but he does not distribute wealth, power and privilege equally.

There’s a really interesting passage in Romans 2. In Romans 2 God is letting us know that judgment is coming on all people for their actions, both to reward and to condemn. And it will be completely fair judgment but not equal.

Romans 2

This is an interesting passage. He says, I will judge and reward both Jews and Gentiles without partiality, but to the Jew first. What does that mean? Isn’t the fact that God judges the Jew first, creating partiality? No. A Jew has more privilege so he will be judged according to that privilege.

A Jew can’t come to God and say, "Man, give me some special treatment. I am one of your people." God would look at him and say, "I made you a Jew." I am not impressed with that? What did you do with that blessing?

God is never impressed with the externals. Why? Because God is the giver of any external we have. That would be like giving your kid $3 and then your kid expecting to get out of chores because he or she is a person of influence.

God is never impressed with the externals. What he cares about is what you do with the gifts he’s given. Do you manage them according to he values of his kingdom or your kingdom.

So our first question is do we judge based on internals or externals.

Notice the connection between holding to our FAITH and the sin of partiality or favoritism. Those who hold to a proper faith will not play favorites;

Those who have been TRANSFORMED by the gospel have different eyes. They see the world differently. They see reality differently. They see reality through the eyes of faith. Through the eyes of the gospel.

Those who live by faith see wealthy differently. They have conversations with themselves. They say, “Even though my eye tells me this person is poor and my eyes tell me that because they are poor they have very little value, I see through the eye of faith that they are incredibly rich because of their profession of Jesus as Lord. They are heirs of the kingdom. And therefore they have incredible value in the eyes of Jesus Christ. This is child that he redeemed.”

Faith sees a different reality. Faith looks at the material world differently than the one without faith. Faith recognized that Jesus Christ is the giver of everything we have AND he owns everything he’s given.

Which means, no amount of privilege we enjoyed growing up, no matter what form that privilege took, stable family, race, gender, crime free neighborhood, was something we can take credit for.
Which means the natural intellect you have was given to you and you can’t take credit for it.
Which means your people skills, your ability to see people, your conflict resolution skills are a gifts of God and you can’t take credit for how those have propelled you forward in your career?
Which means your business savvy is not something you can take credit for; it is a gift of God.
Which means, no amount of money we earned was something we can take credit for.

To take credit for God’s stuff as if it were your stuff and make distinctions of superiority on the basis of that stuff is an abandonment of faith. You have stopped looking through the eyes of heaven. And you are only looking through the eyes of earth.

What James is saying here, is simply this: if you become enslaved to visible things, (in other words, if you are impressed by them), if you become enslaved to visible things it calls into question your faith in invisible things, things God has told you are true but you cannot see.

Enslavement to visible things like wealth and power calls into question our real faith in invisible things like heaven and our identity in Christ. Can we really say we value and trust God’s assessment of people while honoring people according to a standard that God rejects?

I was thinking about this a lot this week. I was really trying to think, “Why do we get this wrong so badly.” I was trying to nail down practices we have as Christians that create wrong ideas about money and power.

You know what I stumbled upon. I think we reinforce these worldly ideas in our prayers of thankfulness. This is thanksgiving season. Right? What do we do in our services?

We say, “Thank you God for all your wonderful gifts!” What could be more appropriate than that? Here’s how our prayers might go? *“God thank you for the money you’ve given us.* It’s only by your divine pleasure that you have given us anything. Thank you for the kids you’ve given us. Lord, they are gifts and we would have no kids without you. Thank you for the home you’ve given us. Lord, it’s so much more than we deserve!”

You might say, "How in the world could that be a bad prayer? That’s a beautiful prayer." It is. But it’s dangerously incomplete and it implies something dangerously incorrect. It correctly acknowledges that God is the source, but it incorrectly acknowledges ownership.

When God give us a home, do we then own it? Who actually owns the property, us or God? Does God give us the money and now we are free to do with it as we please? No strings attached. Or are there strings attached. Is it actually our money?

You see when we pray, “Thank you God for giving us a car or home.” The way we self-conceive of that prayer of thanksgiving is that the car or home is ours. It’s not ours. The deed is in his name. The more accurate prayer would be, “God thank you for allowing me to live in your home.* Thank you for the privilege of stewarding your money and your house and your kids. Help me to take that stewardship seriously and to manage your kingdom resources according to your kingdom values. Help me never to think of your resources as my own.” That’s a VERY, VERY different prayer. I actually had a really hard time praying that this week. It revealed something pretty dangerous in my heart.*

This is why FAITH and FAVORITISM are related. Our eyes tell us we own it. Our eyes tell us we can take credit for it. The world tells us that. The world tells us we have VALUE because it’s our stuff.

But FAITH tells us a different story. It was God. It is God’s. And if we can’t take credit for it, then that means that the guy in difficult situation could just have easily been us and we could have just as easily been him. So why am I not him? Why has God given me this position of privilege and power?

Well, the Bible tells us very clearly. If you are rich in power, rich in wealth, rich in influence? And most of us are… What are the rich to do?

1 Timothy 6

He doesn’t tell the rich to apologize for their richness. Neither does he tell the rich to gloat in their richness. It’s not their richness. It’s God’s wealth that he has distributed. Therefore, steward it according to the values of the kingdom. And what are the values of the kingdom? Radical generosity. Radical.

Take care of the orphan and widow. Notice what true religion is according chapter 1:27. True religion isn’t giving money to orphans and widows. It easy for a rich person to throw money at things. They make problems go away all the time by throwing money. True religion is visiting orphas and widows. True religion is giving your time. It’s caring. It’s using your position of influence to care. That may involve money (it probably will), but it’s mostly about time. It’s about caring.

So the key idea here is that living by faith means, placing value on what have been told is true but cannot see. That’s FAITH. Faith is living by what we know is true even though our eyes tell us something else.

Let me give you an example here. Let’s say you need to go in for surgery. And you need a heart transplant. And you are terrified. But you do your research and you find the best doctor in the world. He’s an incredibly skilled surgeon. He’s done 5000 transplants and never lost a patient. To him, a heart surgery is like tying a pair of shoes. No big deal.

So you rest assured in the evidence. The evidence is overwhelming. So you sign up for the surgery, and on the day of surgery, you get there, and you smell the antiseptic. You go into the hospital, and maybe you see a few surgical tools lying around. You see some bloody gloves lying on the table, and you panic. You chicken out and say, “I can’t do it.”

What has happened? You’ve lost your confidence. You lost your resolve not because you got new information. You lost your confidence because you switched from going by FAITH to going by SIGHT.

You’re now being controlled by what you see, not by what you know.
You’re being controlled by appearances, not the facts.
You’re being controlled by feelings instead of data and living testimony.

So when it comes to making judgments about people? Are you going to walk by faith or by sight? Are you going to say, that person matters because they are made in the image of God or because they have zeros on a paycheck? Are you going to walk by faith or sight?

Faith is not the opposite of thinking. Faith is thinking. Doubt happens when we stop thinking and start looking.

So if we walk by faith, we realize that our value only comes by being his child. Any amount of wealth, possessions, talents, gifts, all of them are the Lords. So our job is to then steward those gifts. How will we do that? That’s the final question.

There is a way to wield power and wealth that honors the Lord and cares for his children and there is a way to do it that dishonors the Lord and crushes his children.

Notice the criticism of James. He’s not criticizing the fact that power exists. He’s criticizing the abuse and misuse of it. And there’s two people he criticizes in the text.

The obvious one is the wealthy man. He critizes the wealthy and the way they treat this poor man. You wealthy people had power to bless this poor man, but instead you drug him into court and oppressed him. That’s evil.

But he’s also criticizing the way the church treated this poor man. He said, you as a usher in the church had power also. You had power to honor the poor but you used your power to dishonor him.

And instead you honored the one who should have been dishonored because the way he treated the poor. You, Mr. Usher, treated the poor the same way the rich did.

You either use your wealthy to oppress or to bless. You either oppress the poor or you bless the widow and orphan. This James’ point.

Transformed living wants to use power, privilege and wealthy to bless, to be like Jesus, who from the storehouses of heavenly blessing gave and gave to us who were orphans. He adopted us. He lavished on us the riches of glorious grace. He made us heirs of his kingdom.

You see, he’s not saying, get rid of all distinctions. Break down the walls of power. He’s not saying, the goal is to make you equal across all gender, social and economic levels. But he is saying to view your wealth like Jesus. Let’s pop back up to verse 5.

That’s an interesting verse. On the one hand, he is probably pointing out something that has been true throughout history; as a general rule, in the history of the world, revival starts with the poor.

The foolish things of the world shame the wise.

Most of the early Christians were poor. Most of the great revivals happened among the poor. Do you know why? Poor people very often can see the game.

When you’re playing these social games and you’re winning, you don’t see that it’s a game, and you don’t like anybody calling it a game. It’s when you’re losing you like to call it a game. You know how that is.

All of us can look back on JH and HS and see that there was a social game going on. When I was in JH, let me just say it kindly, I was losing that game. *And because I was losing, it was easy for me to look on and say, “Those guys are just playing games.* I don’t want to be part of it.”
But if you were winning, you probably didn’t think of it as a game. You thought it very important. This all requires incredible concentration and observation. Great things were at stake.

The poor are rich because they can see this whole wealthy thing, is a game. They sense their need. That’s the real blessing. The poor see it. They aren’t in the game. Their dependence on God isn’t masked by money.

All human beings are poor, we are spiritually bankrupt and we are all dependent on Jesus Christ for EVERYTHING.

FAITH acknowledges that no matter what your station in life. So if you have been given much you steward it according to God’s kingdom values. And if you have been given little, that too is a position that needs to be stewarded according to God’s kingdom values.

The POINT is to live your life as if wealth and power are not the POINT.

So if you are rich or if you are poor, do you use your wealth or lack of wealth as an object lesson for the mercy and grace of God to the undeserving? To help people see that wealth is not the POINT.

That’s really the question.