James 2:1-13

In very unique fashion the Lord used even that song to prepare our hearts for a continued study in James chapter 2. So thank you ladies very very much.

If you’re not a member of our church or you’ve recently been saved or just recently been coming we have a fellowship called the New Connections Fellowship and the third time it will be meeting for the third time on September the 1st at noon at Mike and Kathy Merritt’s house. We would invite all of you to come. I would ask you to look at your calendars, mark it down real quickly somewhere where you are now as a reminder for you to check it out when you get home and join us. It’s an opportunity for you to come and to fellowship with folks who do come to Grace, find some new friends and enjoy a time of encouragement, ask some questions, have some food. September 1st, I believe there will be a sign up next week for that, we’re going to keep announcing that and hopefully you’ll be encouraged to come to our next New Connections Fellowship.

Last week we began in James chapter 2 discussing what scripture calls the sin of partiality, the sin of partiality. We started last week by simply stating that God has an attribute unlike the ones we normally study and that attribute is an attribute of impartiality. God is no respecter of persons. Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 17 says, for the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. Impartiality is an attribute of God. God is perfect equity. God is perfect justice and fairness and He’s no respecter of persons. We found out last week that God is no respecter of persons in evangelism. The gospel has gone out to all men and all men are responsible for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as to their rejection or acceptance of it. God is completely fair and just in judgment. There is no soul that’s going to be less judged than another for their acceptance or rejection of the gospel. God is no respecter of persons in judgment. God is no respecter of persons we saw last week in sin and discipline. God is no respecter of persons in His call to His own children to live a holy standard of living as scripture would call them to.

We found out last week as we tied this attribute to a well-known scripture passage that all of you know that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. We mentioned last week that as we gather here every week that God sees no social class. He sees no bank accounts. He sees no degrees from institutions on anyone’s walls of their home office. He sees no clothing standards. He just sees souls. It’s very important for us to remember, isn’t it? God just sees souls here. And those souls are either born again or they’re not. That makes it simple, doesn’t it? Sometimes the most simple things that God states in scripture are the most difficult for us to comprehend because they’re almost too simple. God sees souls. Souls that are either born again or they’re not.

I had a person of a cult approach my door yesterday morning as I was doing some weed whacking in my yard. And of course, they always start off with everything that they, what they really intend to get to. And his question was to me very quickly and very abruptly, what do you think man’s greatest need in the world is today? And I said, sir, for your purposes, I think you’ve asked the wrong person. And so I began to explain to him what I felt man’s greatest need was and I began to explain to him his greatest need to accept Jesus Christ as the eternally enfleshed God and his desperate need to be born again and to be saved. The conversation did not last long. I was very kind and very nice to him, but I did follow him two doors up in the street continuing to plead for his soul that he would see Jesus Christ as God enfleshed and accept his atonement for his own sins. But at that hour, folks, I don’t see my history as being very important. I don’t see my degrees, three theological degrees being very important at all. I don’t see his stacked briefcase very important at all.

At that hour, on the front doorstep of my house are standing two souls. And regardless of the religious background, regardless of what cult or religious background, there are two souls standing there. And those souls are either born again or they’re not. You aligning yourself even with Grace Church of Mentor means nothing in God’s eyes unless you’re born again. It means nothing. Your faithful attendance here doesn’t grant you any brownie points with your Creator. You’re either born again or you’re not. So I’ll ask you, are you born again? Because God’s offer of salvation is without respect to persons. It is offered to all men, women, and children who would see Jesus Christ as Lord, see the desperate state that they are in in their sin, and cry out to Him as the only way to heaven and to be born again. There are a lot of ways that we’ve seen partiality exhibited in the church. I mentioned a number of those ways last week. I’ll mention a couple more today as we get into a review of verse 1 again. If you go to James chapter 2, verse 1, just by way of review as we continue, My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. Well folks, chapter 2 and verse 1 is directly linked to chapter 1 and verse 27. Chapter 1 and verse 27 is also linked to chapter 1, verse 19 through 26.

Remember we said that the book of James is designed by the Holy Spirit and it gives us a structure, a number of tests, whereby we’re able to verify whether we’re born again or not. There’s three of those tests in chapter 1. We’re studying the fourth test, the test of partiality in number 2. But in chapter 1 we said last week that there’s a test of how a believer handles temptation, trials, temptation, their response to the Word of God. Verses 19 to 27, their response to the Word of God. And one very practical way that we find out that a believer is responding well to the Word of God is how he or she treats two specific groups of people in the church. And they’re mentioned in verse 27 of chapter 1. This is pure and undefiled religion. In other words, this is a very practical, clear way that you would express the fact that you’ve accepted the very clear teaching of the Word of God. This is the fruit of the results. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our Father. To visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. He gives us a very clear illustration of biblical impartiality in verse 27, but it’s only a clear response to receiving the Word of God well.

So James very clearly teaches us that if we willfully continue impartiality, that we are demonstrating that we have not been for some time accepting the very clear and simple teaching of the Word of God. We are all given to partiality. We said that last week. But those who clearly understand the Word of God and willfully accept it, those are people that though they’re given to it, will not willfully exist impartiality. And they’ll show it clearly by taking care of orphans and widows. Those people in our culture, even to this day, as in every culture, are often overlooked as to their physical and material needs. But then he goes on into chapter 1 continuing that thought and he says, let’s talk about partialities. In other words, let’s kind of give a fourth test here.

Let’s park the car on this idea of willfully accepting the Word of God and let’s talk a little bit more about the sin of partiality and how to avoid it. He gives one specific example or two examples in verse 27 and then he stops in verse 1 and we said last week that he uses a plural word for partialities. At the end of verse 1, he talks about an attitude of personal favoritism. Personal favoritism is actually one Greek word, as we said last week, and it’s actually a plural word. We are given two partialities, a number of partialities. And I’m glad that he stops there first because he gives us a plural word before he gets into a physical, real illustration that’s going on in their assembly, their synagogue, that we’ll see in just a moment, to allow us to understand that there are a number of ways that we demonstrate partiality in the church above and beyond the illustration just given in verse 27 of chapter 1 and above and beyond the illustration that’s going to be given us in verses 2 through 4 of chapter 2. We mentioned a lot of ways that we do that.

I have personally seen in myself and in others very, very odd and evil partialities. I have seen wives be partial towards their husbands. I have seen wives fawn the fact that they’re desperately in love with their husbands and yet with the words that they use, would gladly exchange him for another that could benefit them more. I have seen in counseling sessions, wives actually say in front of their husbands, I think I married the wrong person. If my husband could be like so and so in the church, then I would have a happy marriage. Folks, that’s evil impartiality. That is evil impartiality. You are questioning the very nature of the providence of a holy God. As if God sometime in your life made some kind of grave idiotic mistake and now you are a victim of His poor providence. Shame on us. The questioning of our pasts. What if then? What if then partialities are rampant if we just take time to ponder how we can be partial? I’ve said in counseling rooms and I’ve had people say, well pastor, I’ve been in this church circumstance and it’s been bad, I’ve been in this church circumstance and it’s been bad, I’ve been in this church circumstance and it’s been bad, I know that I’m supposed to be in church and I’m going to stay here, but I’m going to assume that this one is going to go bad as well, so I am not going to join and I’m not going to serve.

Well folks, certainly there’s no other person in this room that’s more tender to your difficult church history than me. I’ve seen what poor church circumstances can do to ravage the lives and the souls of God’s people. But to assume that this one will do that too, can I tell you something apart from the grace of God? It probably will. It’s very unusual that this church has lasted 60 years faithfully preaching the Word of God. Most don’t last more than a generation and a half or two at the most. But it may. Because there is a partiality, there is an assumption in all partialities that is an evil assumption, if we’re not careful. Partiality is the enemy of progressive sanctification. Because of the evil assumption, if my husband is not going to change and I wish for another, or my wife is not going to change and I wish for another, then what that evil assumption is doing is not expecting progressive sanctification in that person.

Does that make sense? It’s not assuming that God’s grace can change them and grow them. And it can actually be your evil partiality that is a very large speed bump in your spouse’s progressive growth. But really folks, all partialities stand in direct opposition to our glorious Lord Jesus Christ and the nature, the new nature that He’s given us when we’re born again. You say, well my spouse isn’t born again. Remember, God is no respecter of persons. And when He sees you and your spouse, saved and unsaved, all He sees is what? All He sees is souls. All He sees is souls. And we know that He’s no respecter of persons in evangelism. So that means that the offer of our good God is continually extended to your unsaved spouse to this hour. And so we live a life of godliness and virtue, exuding the fruit of the Spirit, being dominated by the Spirit. So in that day, when they do accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, you will have in your conscience, have obeyed 1 Peter chapter 3, that it was your quiet and meek, nonverbal lifestyle, it was the character you exuded because you were born again that helped your spouse be born again. Because they saw a very real and living and organic change in you.

I think we’re partial to each other in God’s church because of failures. We have a tendency to draw the line in the sand with certain individuals because of the way they’ve wronged us. Or maybe you’ve wronged them and there’s pride. No one will come to the net and shake hands because they’re always batting forth the ball over the net, contending over who was right and who was wrong. And at the end of the day, on that court, God doesn’t see right, He doesn’t see wrong, He sees two souls, two souls born again, filled with the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in that hour, He expects those souls to come together and address each other as if they are addressing Christ Himself and be one as they are in Christ. Rights and the wrongs will be meted out, but there is no meting out of rights and wrongs until partiality is confessed and forsaken.

So really verse 1 is what we would call a prohibition of partiality. It is a clear prohibition of partiality. Oneness with Christ and partiality are incongruent. I love the history of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love, as we mentioned last week, even His own genealogy in Matthew chapter 1. He is eternally impartial. But even before God became man and the person of the God-man, impartiality is shown even in His own genealogy. Who is in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ? Tamar. She was quite a hero in the Old Testament, wasn’t she? A woman full of incestuous sin. Rahab is in His genealogy, a harlot. Ruth an idolatress. Bathsheba an adulterer. David, we know King David didn’t have any issues at all. And it even goes on to mention that Jesus was born in Nazareth. He’s from Nazareth. And you know the old ancient Jewish saying, what good can come from Nazareth anyway? Even to the point where Jesus was born, it became very, very clear that God would be enfleshed among poverty-stricken people with debauched lifestyles and backgrounds. And there was the King of kings and Lord of lords born.

I think of Christ’s ministry in Matthew chapter 20, where He gave the parable of the workers. Do you remember that parable? Where some worked a full day, some worked a half day, and some showed up at the end of the day and they worked an hour. And at the end of the time, Jesus paid them what? Paid them all the same. And to those poverty-stricken people who were desperate for work, Jesus said, the last shall be first and the first shall be last. And what was He saying? He says, I am fair to all. And it was an illustration of His fairness and His justice and His offer of Himself in salvation. It doesn’t matter who’s first and it won’t matter who’s last. What matters are, are you in Christ? So that way, there’s no one-upmanship because you’ve been saved longer than somebody else if someone walks in the back door and gets saved today. We’re all in Christ.

I think of His ministry in Matthew chapter 22, the parable of the wedding feast. Do you remember that parable where the bride was a no-show? And that was a picture of really Israel being a no-show? And what was the Lord Jesus Christ’s admonition at the end of that parable? Since the bride’s a no-show, I want you to leave and I want you to go into the highways and the byways and I want you to invite how many to come to the wedding feast? All to come. I want them all to come. Mark chapter 13, verses 32-37 says, But on that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but of the Father alone. Take heed, keep on alert, for you do not know when the appointed time of the Lord’s return is. It is like a man away on a journey who upon leaving his house and putting his slaves in chore, assigning to each one his task, also commanded the doorkeeper to stay on alert.

Therefore, be on alert, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether in the evening, at midnight, at cock-crowing, in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what, listen, and what I say to you, I say to all. Be on alert. God is impartial. His children must be as well. That’s the prohibition. Let’s look at the illustration in verses 2-4. We read this last week. This illustration is very, very, extremely descriptive. I want you to kind of keep that in mind as we progress this morning. It’s extremely descriptive. But in its description, it’s extremely polar. It polarizes two individuals, two men. It says in verse 2, For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, you sit here in the good place, and you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down by my footstool, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

Why this extreme description? Well, first of all, I find it unique that James uses the term here, assembly. And it’s not ecclesia, it’s not church. He does use that term once in this book. But this is primarily a book addressed to people of Jewish descent. And so the word here is where we get our English word, synagogue. Just simply assembly. In a further study of this passage, an assembly, this word could have been used for a Jewish legal gathering. Or for a Jewish worship gathering. Our context would show us that it’s a worship gathering. Why so extremely descriptive? Well, folks, this can happen among the assembly of God’s people. That’s clear. It can happen this clearly, this vividly. And it can affect the assembly as a whole. Hebert, in his commentary, makes it very clear that though it be two people, one rich man, one poor man, in the assembly of the brethren, yet it was necessary enough to mention and call out two people. This is not an illustration for illustration’s sake, by the way, folks. This was happening in this assembly. So he calls out, by way of illustration, these two men.

We want to be careful as we look at the passage more clearly. But even partiality shown between two men can affect the whole assembly. One man comes in with a gold ring, fine clothes. The word gold ring here is, and don’t be surprised by that, while the clothing might seem ostentatious, it was normal among wealthier Jewish people. As a matter of fact, this man was kind of dressed down compared to the most ostentatious Jew. The most ostentatious Jew was not uncommon for men to have a large gold ring for all 10 fingers. As a matter of fact, in Jewish commerce, they would have had an eBay with just gold rings on it. You could go to gold ring shops. I mean, they specialized in gold rings. I guess today there’s the Diamond District. I guess now it’s the Diamond District in New York City. I don’t know. They specialized in this jewelry. So it was not uncommon. So when this man walks in the back door, there aren’t people turning around aghast at what he’s wearing. As a matter of fact, now the poor man comes in. And it says he’s wearing dirty clothes. The grammar here is clothes of a homeless man, a man that’s not showered for days. And again, it’s not the stench of his being that draws people’s attention. As a matter of fact, his dirty clothes really are not uncommon. But what had become common that should have been uncommon was the way both were treated when they came in. And how were they treated? The wealthy man, you come with me, and you sit right here.

By the way, if you study the structure of synagogues, Jewish synagogues, there were seats for the highly educated Pharisee. There were special seats where they would sit. And what they were doing is they weren’t creating a special seat for this man. They were sitting him among the leadership so he could be seen. And to the poor man, you have two choices. You can stand right there, or you can come right next to my footstool and sit on the floor next to my footstool. What is the illustration teaching us? It’s teaching us some very practical lessons. It teaches us what the issues were and what the non-issues were. What are the issues here? Well, first of all, let’s look at the non-issues. The non-issues in this illustration are very simple. The non-issues are the apparel. James is not saying that the rich clothing is wrong, is he? He’s not saying that the dirty clothing is wrong. Now, if I was a seeker pastor, I would say, see? It’s right there. It doesn’t matter what you wear to church. You wear whatever you want. You’re all welcome. If I was a seeker pastor, I could take that and launch out on that. But that’s not what this text is saying, is it? Just simply, clothing is a non-issue. It’s a non-issue. Seats, where they were seated, were really non-issues. It was not uncommon for someone to take a seat up front if they were asked or sit with the poor.

And by the way, really, to be rich is not an issue, is it? Is James faulting this man for being rich? Really, no fault is leveled against this man. Or certainly, being poor is a non-issue in this passage. So what are the issues? First of all, leadership had a problem. In the first century church, there may have been or may not have been a plurality of deacons. But in this particular situation, even in a synagogue, there was an appointed man. This rich man came in, and he met somebody. And that man made a choice where to sit him. The poor man came in the same thing. There was one man that they both met. And he told them what to do. There was a severe problem with the leadership in this church showing partiality. You study a number of commentaries on this passage. They’ll yield all the same thought, that generally a church will become like its shepherds and like its leaders. If its leaders show partiality, the people will as well. It’s hard enough to fight with impartial leaders, partiality in the church, let alone when you have partial leaders. So I would say leadership is an issue. I would say secondarily that the congregation is an issue. They had become OK with this idea.

Folks, this wasn’t a one-time deal. James wasn’t addressing this because one time was a pattern. There was a pattern. And so he addressed it. The congregation had become OK with it. And folks, you tell me, would it be a distraction to worship? In time, would that become a distraction to true worship, partiality? And folks, this is just one illustration. I want you to go back to the plural partialities of verse 1. Any partiality is a distraction to genuine worship. And again, I would ask you to draw the circle around your own heart and your own life and to determine what angle that may affect you as the Spirit of God would convict you. Certainly, partiality is that tool that can unnecessarily divide the body of Christ with Proverbs 6 calls and abomination. One godly man said that partiality is an evil that exhibits the character of the one who practices it. I was taught in freshman speech class that when you have a vocal pause, it’s always for effect. I’ll say it again. Partiality is an evil that exhibits the character of the one who is practicing it. Again, unaddressed, unconfessed partiality of one soul to another in God’s church is doing nothing more than showing your evil, your evilness, my evilness.

As a matter of fact, look at verse 4. Have you not? This is a concluding sentence that began in verse 2, folks, and it’s put in the form of a question. The New American Standard rightly forms this in a question. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? That word evil is the most descript word that we have for wickedness in all the New Testament. It’s paneros. It’s also used in James chapter 4. To him that knoweth to do right and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Paneros. And in that context, it’s a Christian going about living life without God. A practical atheist, really. Have you not made distinctions? The word distinction here is very clear. It means to discriminate, or to separate, or to divide between two people. Go over to chapter 1 and verse 6 real quickly. We’re going to see this word used again in an unusual situation. We’ll start up in verse 5. But if any of you lacks wisdom, again, this is in the context of trials and handling trials appropriately, test number one. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without any, what’s the next word? Doubting. For the one who doubts, he is not the one who doubts, is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The same word for distinctions, or to discriminate, or to separate and divide is used in James 1:6 as doubt. A divided man. A man versus himself. Vincent, one commentator, said that in making a distinction between the rich and the poor, they expressed a doubt concerning the faith which they professed and which abolished all such distinctions. They had accepted the abolishment of class distinction, and now they were acting as double-minded men. Look at James chapter 1, verses 9 and 10. They have already accepted this as being a proper way of living, no partiality among social strata. But let the brother of humble circumstances, the poor, glory in his high position. And let the rich man, glory in his humiliation. Because like the flowering grass, he will pass away. No problem. No problem. Both rich and poor, doesn’t matter. God sees souls. They both need to be born again. But now they’ve become divided. And all James is saying here, I believe, not a play on words, but a use of words. He’s saying that a partial individual is externally divisive because he’s divided in his own heart. He’s an unstable man or an unstable woman. And it says here that they had become judges of evil thoughts. They were at odds with themselves and had become judges of evil thoughts.

This is in the genitive, which describes the quality of the judges. They had set themselves to be. They were actually, the grammar says here, being motivated by evil thoughts. Could you imagine a Christian being like that? I mean, could you imagine a genuinely born-again person being motivated by evil thoughts and yet coming to the assembly, the corporate worship, and putting themselves off as awesome Christian people? Now, if they’re genuinely born-again, they have divided themselves. They are divided individuals, aren’t they? James is saying it ought not so to be, where you can exist fawning yourself off as right with God, right with God’s people, when in actuality, you’re not right with all of them. You’re being partial, and it’s a coming from evil thoughts are motivating it. You’re evil! Wow! That’s graphic! You’re evil! I didn’t say it. Christians could be motivated by Paneiros.

Now, if I walk up to Luke Hobie, and after church, Luke says, Pastor Tim, I don’t like your penny loafers. I was like, OK, Luke, you don’t have to like my penny loafers. That’s fine. I don’t like yours either. You’re not wearing penny loafers. I don’t like your shoestrings. That’s fine. The next several services, Luke comes up to me, says, Pastor Tim, I don’t like your tie. OK, it’s purple. I can give you that. Guys might not like purple. That’s cool. It keeps coming. He said, Pastor Tim, you got your hair cut. It’s too short. Pastor Tim, last Sunday’s sermon, little too loud and too long. He comes to me the next service and says, Pastor Tim, one of your sons was really, really bad, and I think you should have disciplined him, and you didn’t. I don’t think you’re a very good parent.

Thanks for letting me pick on you, Luke. I know you’d never do this. That’s why I’m doing it. After a while, I would say that someone’s showing partiality. And in that hour, our tendencies in our own flesh is to do what? Whenever I see Luke coming, what am I going to do? My tendency is to either buy him a hat that has a blinking light bulb on it so I can see him coming from far away, so I can avoid him, or I can address him, because I’m not allowing his partiality with me to affect my love for him. Somehow, we’re going to get to the bottom of this. It may take a long time to peel away all that’s really there. But ultimately, when God looks at Luke and looks at Pastor Tim, what does he see? Two souls. Right? Two souls. He gives us the word for those two souls to be right. Now, if we’re not going to get right, Luke, there’s something else driving us, isn’t there? And this passage says evil motivations. That’s the illustration, folks. Very clear. Not very positive.

But I will tell you this grammatically in chapter 2 and verse 4. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves? It’s really a rhetorical question that’s given in the form of an invitation. In other words, have you not, or how long will you continue? Will you not stop? Will you not understand that it’s never too late to do right? Would you just quit measuring one another by your successes and your failures and measure yourself by Christ? Would you please? That’s what James is saying. So as clear as he gets is as gracious as he gets. And folks, can I just share with you, too, that I believe partiality can even be shown in God’s church in various personalities? You study the life of James, go back to Acts 15 and study his history a little bit, OK? Talking about one strong personality. And really, we have become partial to one another even because of our personalities.

Listen, I know personalities, some don’t jive well with others. But never at the expense of Christian fellowship and Christian friendship. Well, verses 5 through 7, we’ve looked at the prohibition in verse 1. We’ve seen the illustration in verses 2 through 4. And now there’s a question in verses 5 through 7. Actually, there’s a couple. The question of inconsistency in conduct. Inconsistency in conduct. And again, remember I said that this was really given for the sake of the whole assembly. Because even one partiality can affect the whole. So we’ve really got to be careful. We’ve really got to be careful.

I was talking to a pastor this week in Arizona. And I talked to another pastor again this week in Maryland. And they were talking about church planting and how their churches have been blessed by God and this, that, and the other. And they just asked me, they said, how big is your church? It wasn’t the topic of conversation. They try to avoid numbers at all costs. And they said, we’re just curious. How big is your church? Both of their churches had at one time been the size of ours. One’s now about 1,500. And another one is around 800. And they both said, and I didn’t tell them that the other person had said this. They both said this. They said, you know what? There’s something about the size of your church. When your church gets to a certain size, it’s almost like Satan builds walls inside the church and outside the church to keep it from growing anymore. He said, I can’t tell you, but I talked to, they both said, we talked to friends all over the country.

And these weren’t seeker guys. These were Bible teaching guys. He said, when a church gets to a certain size, it gets to a certain potential that even Satan knows that it has. And he’ll go to work in your people. And he’ll go to work outside your church. And he’ll do everything that he possibly can to keep the gospel from being effectively lived inside and outside the assembly. And he said, he primarily does it by constructing walls among God’s people. And when they get their relationships right, they said, oh, Pastor Tim, wow. The doors are blown off that place. Now, I understand God is in control of church growth. Jesus builds His church, not a man and not a people. But the thought that Satan knows the gospel potential of any assembly haunts me. And we certainly wouldn’t want this question of inconsistency leveled against us. To think that the Spirit of God would be grieved enough to not profit us with as many lost souls as He possibly would be pleased to do because of our own evil thoughts and intentions would be frightening. And as I say, I certainly don’t think that’s existing in our assembly. But I’m just thinking, the Holy Spirit laid this on my heart for some reason. We’ll do with it what we can.

But there is a question of inconsistency here. Look at verse 5. I’m not going to get through this whole point, folks. I’m just going to take my time through these 13 verses and let you soak in for as much as you can. We’ll read it, make a comment, and move on again next Sunday. Listen, my beloved brethren. Now, if you have a good memory, which I don’t normally, last week we talked and said that the term my beloved brethren was the phrase used to introduce a new test of faith in the book of James. Now, this is not introducing a new test of faith, but James decided to use this term of endearment, this direct address, again, because he didn’t want you getting lost in the argument of his thought. And now it’s an appeal to your conscience. And he uses questions to appeal to your conscience. But before he says my beloved brethren, he says one word. Listen. So he’s not using virulent language here. He’s not pulpit pounding and Bible thumping. He’s appealing to your conscience. Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

Question number one. But you have dishonored the poor man. Question number two. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Question number three. Do you not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? Appealing to their conscience by use of question. And those questions are directly focused on their inconsistency in their conduct. And he’s basically saying, you are making unfair distinctions based on social strata. But let me again share with you, how does God view this situation? Did not God choose the poor of this world who were what? Two things. Rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. That’s how he describes the poor. God has always had, throughout human history, a special propensity to care for the genuinely needy. And even in His care for the physically needy, He is demonstrating to us by physical illustration a greater spiritual point. Though He’s going to address the poor and the oppression of the poor by the rich, He’s addressing them both. And He’s saying, what is man’s greatest need? What is man’s greatest need? Forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Next week, folks, we’re going to investigate these questions a little bit more thoroughly.

I want to finish with a story to you that was given to me this week. And it’s a story told by Malcolm Forbes. Do you know who Malcolm Forbes is? I’m sure you do. Now, I don’t want you to zip up your minds here, because it’s going to be a human interest story that’s going to have a spiritual application. Forbes writes, a lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband dressed in a homespun threadbare suit stepped off of a train in Boston and walked timidly without an appointment into Harvard University president’s outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn’t even deserve to be in Cambridge. We’d like to see the president, the man said softly. Well, he’ll be busy all day. And they said, well, we’ll wait.

For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping they’d go away. And finally, they went into the president’s office and knew he would be disturbed, but said that there are these two people out here that if you come and you address them, I’m sure they’ll leave in minutes. Well, the president sighed with exasperation and nodded, and really feeling that someone of his importance obviously didn’t have the time to spend with them. But he went and he talked anyway to these people. So with a stern face and a stern voice, he faced the folks with dignity and asked them what their issue was. And the lady said, we had a son that attended Harvard a year ago. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But a year ago, he was killed in a tragic accident. And she said, my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him somewhere on campus. And the president retorted naturally as you would, well, if we had every parent come and want a memorial to be erected on campus because of a child that had died that had gone here, this place would look like a cemetery rather than an institution of higher learning. So he said no. And she said, well, the memorial that we would like to build is a building, a building to his name here at the university.

The president rolled his eyes, a building. And by looking at them, he said there’s no way you could possibly have what it costs to build a building in your son’s name. For a moment, the lady was silent. And the president was pleased thinking that he had probably with that statement got them to leave the office. And he did. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly a few words. And then she looked back at the president. And she said, well, how much did it cost to construct this campus? And he said, all the buildings here. This is a story some time ago, obviously. Cost us $7 million to build Harvard University. And she turned to her husband again and she said, honey, is that all that it costs to build a university? He said, I guess so. And she said, well, then I think we should leave and go start our own.

Mr. And Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away and traveled to Palo Alto, California, where they established a university that bears their name and their son’s name, Stanford University. And it now still stands as a memorial to the son that they cared about that Harvard no longer did. Now, how much of that is true? I don’t know. It says it’s written by Malcolm Forbes. But the illustration is still clear, isn’t it? So many times we assess people in partial ways and we value not who they are and what they’ve been created to be by the Lord. And in that hour, we are missing tremendous ministry opportunity of evangelism and growth in Christlikeness. And in that hour where we are divided that way, we have become motivated by evil thoughts. Let’s pray together.

Our Father in heaven, it is our desire to view and to be as impartial as we can be as we seek to be like Thee. As we examine our hearts here, Lord, this morning, we certainly desire to be spirit dominated. As we examine our hearts individually, that we would be found pleasing to You in this matter of impartiality, that we would confess and jettison quickly that which would divide us so that we can get back about the business of souls. Certainly, Lord, we love You more than we love those who we’re divided against. But we love them because they are in You. And so we love. Pray, Lord, that at Grace Church of Mentor that You would be pleased with what You see in this regard, that we would take this prohibition, this illustration, and now these questions and continually analyze our own hearts in reference to the sin of partiality. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.